Snow Queen, Christmas 2014 (review)

 What do you get if you cross a Victorian children's story with Narnia, 'Frozen', Hogwarts, feminist ideology and Christmas? You get 'The Snow Queen', a glorious updating of Hans Christian Andersen especially written for the New Venture Theatre by Andrew Allen. Following the seriousness of Barbarians and the witty froth of Hay Fever earlier in 2014, 'The Snow queen' offered something completely different.  It was the first production for young people for a considerable time and it employed perhaps the largest cast ever seen on a NVT stage. Twenty one actors, actresses, bird and reindeer only just accommodated themselves in the Theatre Upstairs but they had enormous fun with a musical play that transcended most of the usual categories and earned the NVT manifesto of 'community theatre'. 
Was it just for young people? Two nine year olds in our row loved every minute, and laughed and giggled all the way through. They especially liked the crow and the reindeer and they all jumped with pleasure when violent bangs scattered snow everywhere. They told me it was better than anything on TV. They would have loved to have been on stage. 
But few children would have been old enough to understand Allen's hilarious EasyJet instructions on the riverboat, or the chavvy, stroppy girl-power burglars. Neither might most nine year-olds appreciate an ornithological 'caw caw' from the crow as synonymous with 'cor' from 'cor blimey' representing an extreme enthusiasm for practically everything. Simple philosophy was demonstrated by the Flowers who believed most problems could be buried in the earth and that plants needed tending ... towards the positive. Puns flew as thick and fast as the snowflakes: I particularly enjoyed the 'fly-lingual' crow and an enormous 'ass..piration'. 
Old and young found the modern geeky Princess funny in her boots, stripey leggings and metal chainwork. Obviously, she had the fluffy dress somewhere and she married the handsome prince, but she wore the trousers - literally. 
It's a story written by a bloke but really for girls, about girls. Men don't get much of a look in: they are a reindeer, a crow, a susceptible  boy or a soppy prince. There isn't a hero among them. Even the two rather nervously inept soldiers are girls. Chelsea Newton Mountney played Gerda with a beguiling mixture of savvy innocence and naive courage. For some reason known only to her, she protects her childhood playmate Kai who is determined  on self-destruction with the Snow Queen. Matthew Swan made a brave stab at being really stupid, but he couldn't help being a charming young actor in the CS Lewis 'Edmund' role with Narnia's White Witch. I was captivated by the sinus allergies (to snow, mostly) and permanent sneezing of the Queen's courtier Kirrily Long, a genuine comedy talent and necessary foil to the icy horror of Shonali Rodrigues. It was a relief when Gerda's love melts the Snow Queen: the darkest Victorian tales needed a moral and here it was - Love Conquers All. Trolls Annique Tate-Doe, Lisa Feldman and Emma Ruggins were comedically agile, sharing the palm for feisty girl power with robbers Milly Roberts, Lisa Caira and Alanna Manwaring. The hierarchy of Spring and Summer were scene stealers, although Samantha French was especially, transatlantically, hilarious.   
Mark Green made a very fine crow (Andersen uses a Raven) with some picturesque wing flapping and a great deal of very charming enthusiasm. Cor! Jeff Moody's Reindeer was a sorrowful creature under the frozen thumb of the Snow Queen, his mobile face expressing complete gloom to great comical effect. 
The list of production team in The Snow Queen programme is almost as long as the cast, but particular mention must be made of writer/director Andrew Allen who wrote the script and nearly all the songs. Musical direction was by Alanna Manwaring and Lisa Caira, and set design by Mark Green and Isabel Aidalbery. 
Rod Lewis passionately believes in the value of amateur theatre as a community enterprise. Nothing could validate his conviction better than this production of 'The Snow Queen' with its broad appeal and enormous cast. Everyone involved must have had a terrific time, on and off stage. And the audience young and old went home melted and happy with a song  in their hearts! Cor! 

Saturday 4th October 2014

Wonderful rehearsal during the week for The Snow Queen.  We introduced a couple of the songs to the cast, all of whom seemed be on board with it from the get-go (there was even a bit of foot tapping, which is a pretty good sign). At the start of this year, I didn’t know that I was going to be writing a play, much less a Christmas play, much (even more) less one with songs in it. I have no sense of tune or rhythm, so this was a pretty hubristic move on my part. But I seem to have managed to write a decent batch of songs with most of my dignity intact – or at the very least, I’ve managed to surround myself with enough people who are able to spot the tautological errors in my lyrics and nip them in the bud before less forgiving eyes see them.

I imagine this is the same for anyone who writes a song, but there is something very humbling and actually disconcerting about listening to a group of people sing something that previously was just a collection of words on a page, wrestled from my sleep-deprived imagination. Of course, I have previously already had people perform words that I’ve written, but that’s always been prose, and –as far as I can remember – always directed by myself. There might have been an occasion that someone else has directed one of my plays, but if there is, I have managed to forget it. Whatever way you read that, it doesn’t say a great deal for my relationship with my own ego.

I guess another reason why I was so fascinated and discombulated by hearing the songs was that I hadn’t had any involvement whatsoever with the music. As I’ve indicated, with absolutely no degree of self-deprecation, but a decent dollop of actually telling the truth, I don’t have any real musical talent whatsoever. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that the songs I’ve written are terrible (PLEASE COME TO OUR SHOW), but I can’t write a single note of music. It’s lucky then that I find myself working with two fantastic women who have been creating original music for the songs. They give my songs credit, if that makes any sense.

I suddenly realised (if I hadn’t already realised it at some other point in time, and then promptly forgotten it) that I seem to always take on projects that will frankly terrify me. I don’t say this as some kind of humble brag (well, maybe I do a bit), but more as a slightly confused observation of wonder. The fact that I’m adapting The Snow Queen, attempting to do something vaguely unique with it (of which more another time), and sticking some songs in it is ridiculous, to say the least. Good ridiculous, I hasten to add, but still. One of the (many) things that was breaking me out in cold night-sweats was the songs. Since I (and I know I’ve banged on a lot about this, but there’s a point, honest) have very little previously measured talent in that department, it was certainly a thing that, if it all stuttered and coughed up blood, could be well levelled at me as fair criticism – reaching beyond my natural limitations. But I’m not entirely sure that there’s anything wrong with that. Why play safe?

We have yet to go through all the scenes, but once we do, it’s a bit of a rollercoaster. Not that I’m trying to have a scene with a rollercoaster in it (but now that you mention it ..) I’m asking for quite a bit in the way of special effects and props (the snow alone is giving people pause), and we’re very soon going to be starting a crowd funding campaign (yeah, it had to happen eventually), and there’s an atmosphere of something very special around the corner.  Frankly, I can’t wait. 

Friday 26th September 2014

So, that's the first week of rehearsals done for The Snow Queen. And it feels like we've already got a fair bit done. I'm trying to go in softly to begin with, and have relatively few rehearsals when I call everybody. Frankly, there'll be enough time for that later in the production process. What's already so pleasing - so exciting - is the amount of charisma already bubbling off the stage. Everyone seems to be perfectly pitched opposite each other, and finding little nuanced moments that I didn't think of writing. Hell, when this year began, I didn't think I'd end up writing a musical, (or to be exact: a play with songs in it) but it's odd how things turn out sometimes. I mean, I don't have a musical bone in my body (actually, I do: it's my femur, and you can use it to drum out a mean solo on some Led Zep, but the downside for me is that I have to be either dead or an amputee), and I've managed to hack out some lyrics. Let's be honest - in a couple of cases, those lyrics are almost literally hacked out. They initially sounded clunky and and straining, and I've greedily availed myself of any help that I could in order to get them purring like an engine or a head of state on the phone to a smary Prime Minister. We've got most of the songs in some kind of working order (we're gonna have another meet about it tomorrow), and I still need to fix a couple of basic problems in certain lines (apparently, I refuse to accept that singers quite like to take a breath every 560 seconds or so), but it sounds like we are in fairly good shape. 

Newsjack came back this week. It's the open-door submission radio show that pretty much anyone can write for. I've had my eye (ear?) on it for a couple of years now, but never submitted. Actually, that's lie: I did deliver a sketch a couple of years ago, which, if I remember correctly, was a Life On Mars sketch that put Gordon Brown in the Sam Tyler role. Yes, I know. But generally I haven't tried writing anything for the show because .. well, because I'm not sure that I know how. I'm not being self-deprecating. I'm genuinely fascinated and somewhat awed by sketch writing. I don't quite k kw how it works. I love good sketch comedy, although I'll concede that the definition of good sketch comedy varies wildly from audience member to audience member. And lest we forget, Big Train (the one that usually gets mentioned in conversations like this is about 15 years old now. I find something very attractive and seductive about a good sketch. A novel is a strange and exciting journey, a stand-up is a bottle of wine with a great friend who shares much of the same opinions as you, and a sketch - a sketch is that piece of cake that makes you emit inappropriate noises when you consume it. A good sketch (for the most part) is  delightful, small, unique (I knew someone who used that phrase on their dating profile). All my favourite sketches have got from me first, a bark of laughter, then a hiss of jealousy: that idea was so clever/beautiful/simple .. It was there for the taking, for years and years .. and someone got there first. 

A friend of mine tagged me in a post this week, suggesting that I write for NJ, which is prompting enough to do something I guess (we all write a lot better if there's someone waiting over our shoulder). The fact is that I'd already tried to write a couple of one-liners , and then my Internet failed - I was trying to send emails from my phone, but my email wasn't playing fair. I'd had lots of phone time with the lovely people at EE (not Phones 4U, they weren't returning my calls for some reason) before it became apparent that I had apparently exceeded my Internet allowance. So, the readers of the slush pile at Radio 4 Extra were spared my inane ramblings for at least another week. 

I listened to the show as it aired, however, at least partially out of research: what was the house style? What exactly was the sort of joke/sketch to get through the gate? I have a sad suspicion that this is the mood that most of the listeners attend the show: not simply punters, but slightly earnest would-be writers listening stony-faced as they try and crack the code. I'm not judging: as I've said, I'm one of them. There were a pleasing amount of gags that made me laugh out loud (and at least one that made me jealous that they'd got to the joke before I did: one about Phones 4U employees and their contracts), but I'm still not really any the wiser as to what makes a good sketch. But if I can get at least one joke through the gate .. then I would consider myself at least holding the foot of the ladder. Not the first rung. That'd take some more time yet. 

Tuesday 29th July 2014

Going through the sixth / seventh / eighth draft of The Snow Queen. I don't even know anymore; the drafts have all sort of blended into each other; fixing the problems in one as I reprint out the next, printing out the next knowing already that such and such a scene has to be swapped with another, except that there's no real way of doing that yet ... and at least three characters haven't been fully sketched out yet .. All the usual stuff that happens around this time of the rewrites. 

At the moment, I'm far too close, scaling the sheer cliff face of the script to know if it's actually any good or not (I'm going to have to have another sweep of the original Hans Christian Andersen before I do too many more rewrites, that's for certain). But on one thing alone, I appear to be in pretty good shape. Currently, I have almost all the story that I need to tell down on paper - in about half the pages that I need. This is very good news. The last script I produced clocked in at over two hours. People didn't mind too much, but they didn't mind with the qualification that, yes, it was too long. Plus, this is a kid's show. There's no way that I'm going to be able to get those kids to sit still for a hour and a half, let alone over two. I was initially slightly concerned, because as well as all the actual plot and narrative stuff I'm writing for this thing, I'm also writing songs (yeah, I know. Shush). I thought that perhaps that once I'd come up with the songs, there would be room for only the lightest and flimsiest of plots. I've been watching a lot of Disney, to see how they get away with it. Turns out there's a lot of swinging from tall buildings. 

The other thing that's been a bit of a challenge this week is the casting for our next batch of short plays - for CAST IRON 3 - in September. We always knew that we would lose some of our regular company this time round, to the likes of Edinburgh, summer holidays, and 'a life' (yeah, me neither), but it's been a particularly tough call in terms of casting and the like. I think we've almost got it sorted, but it has meant that our various casts have significantly less time to rehearse their plays.