"Spring Awakening" by Kristian Thomas Senior Youth Co.

Duchess Theatre, Long Eaton.

Based on Frank Wedekind’s ground-breaking and controversial play (once banned in Germany), Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s rock score and emotional book take the story of sexual awakening, youth revolt, and self-discovery into a new century. 

It’s 1891, and grown-ups hold all the cards. Headstrong Melchior and naive Wendla stumble into each other's arms, passionate and curious, while anxious Moritz struggles to live up to the stringent expectations of society. With only each other for guidance, this group of young men and women travel the fraught and rocky path of adolescence, discovering their bodies, their minds, and themselves along the way. 

An exciting celebration of youth and rebellion, "Spring Awakening" fuses issues of morality, sexuality, and rock and roll into a story that packs a powerful emotional punch, which is as relevant today as it was when first written, although not quite as controversial in today's age as it was back in 1891, but just as shocking with some of the issues this piece of theatre deals with.

This musical also shows that not all musicals performed today are all "happy-clappy". With child cruelty, peer pressure, suicide, abortion, death and extreme emotion, this is a real gritty production and a production that merits a larger audience than in on Thursday's opening night. Some may prefer not to spend their money on a piece of theatre that may be unknown to them, but this production shows how good we have it today and how being open and honest with our children, and ourselves reap benefits. There are many lessons to be learnt from the messages in musicals such as this.

The big cast make a massive impact, especially in the ensemble numbers and completely fill the stage, not only presence wise but with their big vocals as well. A large cast can make choreography look a bit cramped but not here, every move fitted perfectly on the Duchess Theatre stage. A job obviously well worked out by choreographer Shannon O' Donnell.

The casting of the main characters were also perfectly chosen.

Stan Cook (Melchior) would be the equivalent of a high school jock if this were something akin to High School Musical or Grease. Good looking and the guy that all the girls fancied. What struck me more than anything else in this production was his voice. He has a beautiful falsetto which we get to hear in Act Two in the very emotional "Left Behind".

Nadia Potter (Wendla) is another young actor who has an incredibly good voice and for one so young, a wonderful vibrato, highlighted in "Whispering". It was a shame that in her opening number, "Mama Who Bore Me", there was an issue with the mic, meaning we could not hear her singing. This was very quickly rectified though and there were no further sound issues.

Dominic Wood (Moritz) acted his socks off in this production. His face contorted with the inner suffering, you really felt his pain and he made sure that he showed it. I have seen "Spring Awakening" before, so I knew what was to come, but Dominic's performance still made the hairs on my neck stand up as if this were my first time of watching. He also has the ability to interpret passion through his singing and I loved hearing the hurt through his vocals, highlighted in "I Don't Do Sadness", as well as his acting.

Lottie Stone (Ilse) also gets to show off her vocal skills in a gorgeous closing number in "The Song Of Purple Summer".

Someone else who I though played a really good part was Oliver Ridgeway as the teacher and authority figure. A good mature performance.

Very well directed by Katy Maclaughlin, as this is not an easy production to stage.

Produced by Kristian Cunningham. Anything with Kristian's name attached is bound to be worth the ticket price.

An excellent musical score under the direction of Tom Bond, who was also responsible for the sound design, with lighting designed by James Cladingboel.

I loved the uniformity of the costumes and the subtleties of the changes with the school uniform and the reform school uniform. Sometimes less is more when making a difference.

This is not the easiest piece of theatre to watch, and with the messages given in the story, quite rightly so. We should be made to feel uncomfortable as that shows that the actors, director and producer have all done their job.

Kristian Thomas Company are no strangers to taking risks but they always make sure that those risks pay off, and again it has paid off as this is a brilliant, hard-hitting production which pulls no punches, and deserves to be seen by a full theatre audience.

Take some tissues because you'll need them!

"Spring Awakening" is at the Duchess Theatre in Long Eaton until Saturday 29 January. Tickets are from £11 to £13.

 "The Palace Of Varieties" by Kevin Fegan

Derby Theatre.

"The Palace Of Varieties" or "The Life & Times Of Dennis Skinner" tells the story of Bolsover MP Dennis Skinner, from his childhood days through his political career up to the present day. And a fascinating journey we travel in this ninety-minute non-stop time tunnel.

I've never been politically inclined but I am the son of a miner so can associate with parts of this play and his fight for the miners and the common man. We see the Thatcher/Skinner race through the eyes of a car race and the parliamentary houses akin to a working men's club, complete with entertainment manager as speaker and singing and comedy turns. We also see Dennis Skinner's love for music and nature, and I learned something about bluebells that I did not know before!

We see the passion that Skinner had for representing the miners, as a miner, plus his political passions and his family life including the sad loss of his parents, the people he influenced, friends and a glimpse inside his personal life.

As a non-political person, this was all new to me and I found the whole story fascinating, I found the man fascinating and his stoicism completely admirable.

The play also is satirical and raised many laughs, not chuckles, but proper laughs throughout.

The set is actually on the Derby Theatre stage, screened off from the normal auditorium with seating for 120 at each performance and set up in the style of a cross between the House of Commons and a working man's club, complete with pool table, working bar and jukebox, with an after-show karaoke for the audience to partake. The "stage" being between the two sets of raised seating on either side.

This works particularly well as an intimate setting for the play. It would not have had the same reaction if the whole auditorium were opened up.

The cast of three work extremely hard with Jack Brown and Lisa Allen playing several character roles throughout with Gareth Williams, who you may remember from playing "Scrooge" at Derby Theatre a couple of years ago. I first saw Gareth nearly forty years ago at the Nottingham Theatre Royal as part of the accapella hit group, The Flying Pickets. Both Jack and Lisa run through a series of characters, of variable ages, as well as accents, while Gareth concentrates on being Skinner.

I mentioned the set, which was designed by Jen McGinley, and took us from the working men's club, to the House of Commons to down the mines and the hospital where Dennis found himself in his later years. The mine scenes were particularly well done with the assistance of the lighting design, by Benny Goodman. Daniel Ellis also created atmosphere with his imaginative sound design.

Kevin Fegan, the writer of this wonderful piece of theatre, highlighted the man behind the politician and miner and drew out his love of nature, music and his natural comedy. He showed that he had no fear in calling out other politicians if he thought them to be wrong and not doing things to benefit the constituents and voters, giving a voice to the man in the street.

Going in to this play with absolutely no expectations of what I was to see, I was very pleasantly surprised, and now feel that I know Mr Skinner personally, and like him as a man, and a politician, which is so much more than I can say for any politician today.

"The Palace Of Varieties" is at Derby Theatre until Saturday 5 February and whether you have any political leanings or just love a great piece of theatre, this is one not to be missed.

 "Silly Cow" by The Bonington Players

Bonington Theatre Arnold.

Written by Ben Elton, his plays show, for me at least, that he is funnier in his writing than in his stand-up comedian period. I'd previously only seen "Popcorn" on stage, but this play has really won me over in the Ben Elton stakes.

"Silly Cow" is a slick and razor-sharp satire on the viciousness of tabloid journalism. Doris Wallis is a newspaper columnist and arts reviewer with a talent for caustic insults and career assassination. When we meet Doris, she is being sued by the actress Trudi Hobson, after writing an article which savaged the respected thespian with accusations of small talent and large thighs. Doris isn’t worried: she’s got a job offer, a plan for a television show, and the cleavage to help the judge see things her way.

Doris has a personal assistant who will do anything for her, incredibly eager to please, an active and varied sex life as well as a twenty-one-year-old toy-boy, who can also keep her supplied with cocaine. Basically, things could not be better for Doris as she lives the life of the celebrities whose reputation she is only too happy to destroy.

But she’s about to discover that even journalists can’t escape reaping what they have sown, and that there’s nothing quite as dramatic as the revenge of a scorned actress.....

Set in the 1980's we get to see a montage of classic 80's celebrity on screen before any action takes place on stage. Having not seen the film, read the book or the play previously, this production was my first introduction to the play, and I loved it!

The script is fast moving and the one liners and caustic comments run back-to-back, with some of the quick quips being missed by some of the audience; or maybe I just found them funnier than some of the others in the crowd. Needless to say, this script is packed with funny lines, and the cast deliver with great enthusiasm and pace.

The cast need no singling out as together they perform like a well-oiled machine. The production is an ensemble piece with all five actors complementing each other. Eddie Januszczyk (Sidney Skinner - a hinted at has-been who has been brought back home to become a TV celebrity once more), Lindsey Hemingway (Doris Wallis), Charlotte Cordall (Peggy - Doris' personal assistant with a strange Northern accent, which becomes apparent as to why it is strange later in the play), Phil Ashford (Douglas Robertson - Doris' accountant) and Alex Brimelow (Eduardo - the streetwise toy boy).

Brilliantly designed and directed by Jonathan Greaves, the pace is kept up all the way to the end when we start to see several twists, which I certainly was not expecting, but when they did come, they started to explain some of the name checks of fictitious actors, victimised by Doris, strewn about in Act One.

I loved the "Wogan" section which started Act Two, and also ties in to how the play ends. The video sections are designed by David Goatham, who is also responsible for the Sound Design for the production.

The Lighting Design is by Peter Hodgkinson, so I knew that the lighting would be trouble-free.

The set is excellent, with plenty of 1980's touches like the phones and design from that era. With all of the social media around today, many of the comments, name checks and communication devices will seem dated to some who did not live through that decade, which makes it all the more fun for those of us who did.

There's a lot of naughty language throughout, so this may not be for the easily shocked; but for those who have a sense of humour, then this is the one to see this week. It may not be one of Ben Elton's most popular, or most performed works, but it's a real gem for theatre goers.

"Silly Cow" is at The Bonington Theatre in Arnold until Saturday 22nd.

 "Nativity The Musical" by The Young Performers

Duchess Theatre, Long Eaton.

If you are suffering from the January blues, The Young Performers have the perfect tonic in this fun musical.

Feel-good, funny and full of joy, this cracker of a musical is about St Bernadette's School set in Coventry, and they are mounting a musical version of The Nativity, which also involves a side serving of rivalry with another school, Oakmoor Prep.

Paul Maddens, Jennifer Lore and Gordon Shakespeare were once close friends but when Gordon and Paul became school drama team rivals, and Jennifer received a job offer in Hollywood, the three friends grew apart. This was especially hard on Paul as he and Jennifer were on the brink of matrimony, albeit unbeknown to Jennifer, as on the day Paul was due to propose, Jennifer broke the news of the job offer and Paul just could not stand in her way of happiness.

Paul did not want to repeat the previous attempt at The Nativity, when a local drama critic gave the show minus two stars and Gordon's production five stars, but the head teacher of St Bernadette's, Mrs Beaven, gave him the job to produce the new version of The Nativity, Paul was horrified. Enter Mr Poppy to help out! Mr Poppy overhears Paul telling Gordon that he is going to beat Gordon's festive production and that Hollywood were coming to film the St Bernadette's production, and very soon word spread. Now all Paul has to do is get Hollywood to travel to Coventry to see their school's Nativity!

The Young Performers have a brilliant cast, numbering 34, who positively sparkle and three leads within the cast that shine exceedingly bright.

James Pedrick (Gordon Shakespeare) is a brilliant character actor who has a special talent to make the audience dislike - in the nicest of panto baddie ways - the character he plays. You can feel your skin itch every time Shakespeare comes onto the stage and that is all due to the characterisation given by James. I've had the pleasure of seeing James on stage before and just knew that he would smash this role because I have seen his capability before.

I have seen the original actor, Simon Lipkin, from the movie play Mr Poppy on stage and he is wonderfully childish in character. Louis Dexter (Mr Poppy) here is also wonderfully childish, which you'd imagine from a young actor, but he also has a special gift for making you see an adult pretending to be childish, while still a young person himself. Great fun to watch and you know that he has won the audience over with one scene in Act Two where the audience empathised with the situation he has found himself in at that stage. More than that I am not going to tell you, but you just know that he has the audience exactly where Louis and his character want them. 

Drew Boswell (Paul Maddens) excelled himself, and I will tell you why. He not only can act incredibly well, but he acts with his face; he can create a reaction from just a facial expression, and that is not something that some young actors can master. He gets inside the character of the frustrated Maddens and delivers the lines as if he were Maddens himself. He understands the character and the delivered lines with lovely expression and emotion. Drew reminds me of actor/comedian Hugh Dennis visually and has a singing voice that reminded me of a young Harry Nilsson and I can see Drew having a successful acting career if he carries on like he has been doing.

These three leads are mini magicians as they create the illusion that we are watching adults, not young actors playing adults, and you soon forget the ages of the actors on stage and see past this and that is so important for an actor to create that illusion and belief in the character they are watching.

I must not forget to mention as well Scarlet Hutchings (Jennifer Lore) and Ruby Garrison (Mrs Beaven) in a male dominated set of leads, both held their own acting and singing wise.

Zak Charlesworth has directed another successful piece of theatre with this perfectly cast musical, which is a perfect choice for the age of the actors.

George Parkinson is the Musical Director for the Young Performers Band and sounding pretty good. There are plenty of earworm pieces in the soundtrack including "Sparkle & Shine", "One Night One Moment", "Nazereth" and "My Very First Day At School".

Vicky Byrne does a great job with the choreography, especially with the size of the cast.

Dave Dallard is Sound Designer and Dave Martin is Lighting Designer.

For anyone who has any interest in stage craft and managing a stage, this production is perfect for anyone who wants to delve into this particular facet of local theatre as there are 45 scenes to manage. With the large cast, stage management has to be spot on, and Roydon Charlesworth and gang showed how it's done. Not even phased by the one scenery issue which caused a gasp from the audience but stage management and cast were professional in the resolve.

Putting on any show is never an easy task but this group have done a brilliant job. The large cast, brilliant costumes, sheer professionalism of everyone on - and off stage, not to mention the enthusiasm, merits the almost full auditorium, and this is just on opening night. I hope that ticket sales continue in this fashion as you get plenty of bang for your buck with this production.

"Nativity The Musical" is at the Duchess Theatre in Long Eaton until Saturday 22 January.