The Cher Show
Theatre Royal Brighton
Cher is the only act in history to have a No. 1 single in each of the last 6 decades which makes her the undisputed Queen of Pop, there are other monarchs of course, but she has ruled the longest and this musical attempts to grab some of the glittery joy of the last six decades of her music and stage career and chart it’s astonishing ups and downs.
We have a trinity of Cher’s, Cher to the power of 3, reflecting her reinvention over the years, offering some surreal takes on her own music being sung by a few Cher voices, but in analogue harmony rather than 8 track or postproduction magic. Each Cher here representing a different emotional period, the exquisite, fragile but filled with endless talent and energy ‘Babe’ (Millie O’Connell), the Reckoning Cher when she starts to wrest control of her life from the men determined to exploit and control her ‘Lady’ (Danielle Steers) and mature Cher, gentler, wiser, but still filled with the passion for performance and achieving her dreams’ Star’ (Debbie Kurup). Guy Woolf, who stepped in to play Sonny Bono, a part he understudies, was remarkable this evening, played with arrogance and control but giving him humanity in his wish to see the duo succeed. Cher’s mother, Georgia Holt is given the warmest part here, showing unconditional love in a dirt poor upbringing and sharing hard won emotional wisdom with daughter, throughout her showbiz career, and Tori Scott’s triumphant singing supported this strength of character.
It’s a beguiling set up, allowing the different Cher’s to interact, care, admonish and encourage each other as the fragilities and challenges of her impressive range of talents across three main sections of her career, are presented to us. There’s a knowing humour running thought this performance, reflecting contemporary Cher’s own approach to her career, gracefully nodding to her rich vein of camp and the legions of Gay male fans who have adored her and known her in their dance floors and anthems. It’s testimony to the emotional thrall that Cher keeps her worshiping Queers in, that there was a huge, and I mean HUGE range of Queers packing out the Theatre Royal last night, from a royal box full of young fierce Drag Queens to the stalls full of ageless silver-haired Homo’s, there was enough Botox on show to give Cher an extra decade of life and the excitement was electric.
The crew who crafted this show really know how to offer up the Oomph and the choreographed frenetic, full rigging brilliance of the lights, dancing and sound are top notch, giving the show a quality feel and allowing it to transcend any suggestion of it being a tribute act. Written by Tony award-winning Rick Elice, this UK production is directed by Arlene Phillips, choreographed by Oti Mabuse, with costumes by Gabriella Slade it simply slays. This shimmering new production features a fresh take on her show-stopping costumes which earned her the title of “the ruler of outré reinvention” from Vouge, the set is simple, rolling on and off, with mirrors and bars displaying the chronological progression.
This is a big show, rather neatly crammed into the small spaces of the Theatre Royal stage but you can see how it will look in the West End when it, eventually gets there. It’s planned, plotted and built for a huge space and the production values, staging and lighting feel far more stadium concert than rococo vintage theatre. The super polished production values hide a ratty plot and script, but everyone knew the stories and music, so it was more a bouncing ball narrative than launching any surprises at us, did I learn anything? Hmmmm, that Cher won an Oscar! People who abused her are given a tender posting here reflecting perhaps more of Cher’s own personality and ability to forgive than their own devious exploitative natures, but the focus of the show is Her, not them, and the overall psychological insight offered into both the choices in her singing and performance life are backed up by the insights into her romantic choices, allowing the women who is Cher to reach an emotional maturity whilst the show unfolds. It’s neatly done, watching her empower herself, her experiences giving insight and strength and ultimately power and agency over her own life. She’s renowned for battling for fame and autonomy in male-dominated industries.
Full list of cast and creatives on the UK Tour website here
The Theatre Royal Brighton has a strict policy of asking people, quite rightly, to turn off their mobile devices before a show starts and prohibits photography or filming of any show, this was stated clearly at the beginning of this show. It’s hugely intrusive for people to be using devices to film or photograph inside a dark theatre, so quite why the cast openly invited people to film them during the final parts of the show is not clear. Obviously, they harvest a rich stream of badly focused, badly filmed social media content which allows the show to ride a wave of mediocre TockTicked Insta Twitwaddle all the way to the bank but it also gets in the way of those of us that like to watch a show. The people in front all had their phones out, urged on by the cast, holding their cameras up, fully lit and bright, blocking the view of the people behind, even though everyone was standing. Simple bad manners, it’s not Cher on stage, it’s not a concert, it’s not on. Three shorter people next to me, who had paid a goodly sum for their tickets missed out completely on the last fifteen minutes of the show because of the selfish behaviours of the phone maniacs capturing wobbly footage of the show and staring unresponsively at their screens. Beware cast, you’ll reap the whirlwind!
It spoiled the evening and the Theatre Royal needs to decide if it has rules or not which allow for the whole audience to enjoy a production or just a small social media addicted part of it….
My companion who only knows Cher from Believe enjoyed themselves, smiling at the glittery energy being shared by the dancers and singers on stage and left surprised by the breadth of her artistic abilities. The singing was superb across the board, all three Cher’s delivering timeless songs with a passion and emotional connection that the audience adored. Offering their own instantly recognisable take on Cher and her distinctive alto voice whist driving their own passion into the musical, when they combined voices, the Tripartite Cher affect was amazing and more than made up for the jukebox musical shortening of some of the other songs.
Until Nov 12th
For more info or to buy tickets see the Theatre Royal Brighton’s website here
Villada’s magical prose is alive the mind, restless, startling, bursting out like heady roses filled with the flesh ripping thorns of brutal honesty exploration of the experience of selling your body to live in this diverse community of poor sex workers. The construction of the narrative is flawless, seducing you on, prowling the outskirts of imagination, soft fur, claw, the warmth of a den all drawing you into this raw exploration of the human need for love.
An evening of pure queer joy was had with the Sunday Times best-seller Juno Dawson, who invited us to join them at their uber cool Literary Trans Salon, which oozed charm and bookish delights, for an interview with the delightful Travis Alabanza – award-winning writer, performer and theatre maker. They talked about their writing, upbringing, class, sex, ideas, sex, narrative journeys, current books and ‘working the circuit’.
The New Voices panel with Okechukwu Nzelu – in conversation with three new writers – allowed us to listen to writers recently published, although often writing for a long time, as they talked about their own journeys to being published. Hearing them read their own works to an attentive queer house was simply lovely. Elizabeth Chakrabarty frankly discussing compassion and hate crime was revelatory; Jon Ransom sharing the power of his seminal novel on grief brought the room to a tangible stillness; Tice Cin‘s modest soft exploration of intersections of identity and visibility was moving and presented awareness with gut punch prose.
Other highlights of the festival: a fun and eye opening learning session from podcasters
The Coast is Queer 2022 delivered quality arts and literature; an opportunity to listen in great comfort to queers talking about queers. Attendees also had the opportunity to buy and browse the bookshelf, curated by Brighton & Hove’s independent bookshop: Feminist Bookshop.
The tightly planned, clockwork action of the farce, building on layers of interaction and repetition has a meditative quality to it as it speeds up and at the same time appears to be going wildly out of control. This delightfully ominous change of tempo, ever faster -ever madder -offering the cast some stand out physical comedy, which are grasped with gusto but also taxes the narrative to keep up unless we really know and care for the characters.
The cast is a delight, each playing a cliched theatrical type but with warmth and lived experience showing through, it feels shabby, slightly down at heel, doing the provincial theatrical tours, frayed egos and making do just as it’s supposed to. The musty Rep company reproduced well which allows the comedy to build to its raucous thunderous climaxes. We get to see the play within a play three times, from different perspectives, literally from backstage ( as the play goes on out-front) and finally almost at the end of it’s run when the fraying of temperament, backstage rivalry, relationships and cabin fever play out in a frenzy of misunderstanding and farcical violence. It’s consistently funny, brilliantly so at times and had the added addition of a small set failure which only added to the delight of the audience as the cast improvised their way around it. Wonderful.
It’s in three acts, the second slightly long and endlessly frenetic but perhaps that’s part of it’s charm, breathless action smashes across the stage but a lack of connection with the characters, them being played more for clichéd excitement than for understanding of motive made the silent gurning, hand gestures and cartoon violence less a essay in mounting desperation and more an experience in clowning, either way the audience loved it.
This was my first time watching Noises Off and it made me laugh out loud at some seriously absurd lines and although impressed by the physically manic clowning on stage it was the relentlessly mangled absurdist lines which brought out the bigger laughs with me.
Macqueen
BRIGHTON & HOVE’S LGBTQ+ LITERATURE FESTIVAL
Lavery’s prose is absurd, lovely, cosy, and filthy, stuffed with humour, overflowing with philosophical bon mots and shimmy up against the readers mind in a most salacious and disturbing way. We weave constantly in and out of perspectives, thoughts and ideas of penises and sex, endlessly, kaleidoscopically, relentlessly. There’s no attempt to make any of this accessible to a non queer, binary cis reader, the blending of fiction and truth can baffle as much as delight but feel tangibly real in the context of this life lived at full throttle. Perhaps that’s the fun of this clever and thought-provoking memoir, offering up stories and experiences that shock, titillate and challenge but steering us to our own conclusions. Lavery don’t care what we think, or do they? I wonder if behind this petulant provocative poser of paradoxes if there’s not an eminently sensible person quietly sipping tea and smirking at our surprise.
You must be logged in to post a comment.