The Hired Man at Union Theatre was beautiful

The Hired Man was one of those easy choices. I had seen three Howard Goodall musicals at Union Theatre a couple of years ago and loved them all and that was more than enough to get me back there for a fourth helping.

Having the story based on a book by Melvyn Bragg only made it more attractive.

A bargain at £22.50.

Normally a trip to a theatre in that area (there are four that I go to fairly regularly) means eating at Culture Grub first but they were closed for refurbishment so that meant looking for a Plan B. That was an easy too and I stayed in the theatre cafe and had a halloumi wrap with some interesting accompaniments and, er, chips.

My usual good planning got me a top ten ticket which got me in the first batch of people let into the theatre and that got me a middle seat in the front row in what proved to be a full house, they even brought a couple of chairs through from the bar.

The Hired Man told us the story of a casual agricultural worker, his two brothers and their friends and lovers in the early part of the twentieth century. They were people at the bottom of the economic tree, the sort of people Thomas Hardy also wrote about, and their lives were never settled, never comfortable. There were plenty of moments of happiness, times spent with lovers, time at the races and drinks with friends in the pub but there was also the discomfort and danger of working in the pits and the even worse discomfort and danger of the trenches in the Great War.

It was a grim story that was, somehow, never bleak.

Holding everything together was the music which did everything that I hoped it would do from my previous experiences of Goodall's work. The mood and the structure kept changing with soloists, diets, trios and choruses providing different soundscapes while some themes were repeated to make new tunes sound familiar. There was clearly a Goodall approach at work here and I felt he could write musicals in the way that other people write episodes of The Archers and they would all be good.

Sitting in the front row proved to be a good choice and I felt totally immersed in the story. That story gripped me because I did not know it, it was not obvious where it was going and there was always something interesting going on.

There was a lot of activity too with the large cast dancing quite a bit and generally moving around a lot. It was an ensemble performance and everybody played their part well.

With story by Melvyn Bragg and music by Howard Goodall my exceptions were clearly set and The Hired Man sounded exactly like that. It was beautiful (and grim!).

Bend it like Beckham at the Phoenix Theatre was a feel-good musical on steroids

I had heard of the film on which the musical is based but that was about it and from that little knowledge I had concluded that Bend it Like Beckham was a simple crowd-pleaser of a musical that was best avoided, which I did.

The little nagging doubt came from knowing that Howard Goodall had written the music and I had seen and loved several of his musicals.

What finally persuaded me to go was a ticket offer that coincided with a special day. And to celebrate that special day and also to keep in the spirit of the musical I first went for a curry, at Woodlands just of Piccadilly where I had been a few times before. It was a good start to the evening.

The Phoenix Theatre was on the other side of Soho so there was a nice walk through the back streets to get there. Soho is vibrant and lovely and should stay just as it is.

Somehow I had not been to that theatre before so I had little idea what it looked like inside. I assumed, correctly, that it was like most other traditional theatres in the west end and so I went for a seat in my usual location, Dress Circle Row A  Seat  15, which was a friendly £35.

If I had any preconceptions about Bend it Like Beckham it was that it would be a full-on family musical with an Indian twist to the story, music and dancing. Which it was, and it had so many great things going on around that. I liked the way that the story included elements of class, sexuality and inter-generation conflicts as well as the expected gender elements.

While the young woman keen on playing football, Jess Bhamra, was at the centre of the story she was surrounded by many other strong characters, such as her sister Pinky Bhamra, her determined English football playing friend Jules Paxton, Pinky's boyfriend and Jess' male school friend who is secretly gay. To that list you can add assorted parents, other family members, friends and, of course, the girls' football team. It was a very large cast which was just what was needed for the many ensemble scenes of singing and dancing.

There were some nice technical touches too, such as the way that the two main girls' bedrooms slid in an out on raised platforms on either side of the stage. Tricks like that meant that the action could move from scene to scene quickly without breaking the flow too much, something that film makers do not have to worry about.

There were plenty more nice touches in the script too such as, and these are just two little examples to prove the point, the football skills shown by Posh Spice and the Jules' forty-something mum being called a granny by a young man.

The overall effect was wonderful. The main plots were obvious, as they should be, which meant that we got the happy endings that we all wanted and we also got lots of other happy, funny and jolly things along the way.

Bend it Like Beckham was a feel-good musical on steroids with a great cast. I absolutely loved it.

Girlfriends at the Union Theatre was a very musical musical

The first two shows in the Howard Goodall season at the Union Theatre, the dreaming and Love Story, were very lovely and so I made sure that I got to see the final show, Girlfriends.

Not unusually (sadly) the best that my careful planning could do was the final Friday evening of the run. At least the planning was good enough to get me a seat for the show which sold out soon afterwards.

I was able to work in London that day and that was a big help. I can get back to London from Reading in time for evening performances but that is fraught with risks (delayed trains etc.) and allows little time for food. The people in the pasty shop on Reading Station are starting to recognise me. So it was nice to be able to hop on a 63 bus which took me straight from Kings Cross to Southwark Station.

My plan was to dive into the nearest pub to get some food (and a beer!) but the nearest ones were several people deep outside and looked busier than the average rush hour tube inside. Slightly worried I walked away from the station along Union Street toward the theatre and was delighted to find The Union Jack opposite. It was busy but there was enough space to get inside and I managed to get a table towards the back. The food was excellent, well price and delivered with great care. I'll be back.

Having got used to how the Union Theatre works, I collected my ticket from the box office when it opened at 6:30pm before going to the pub. There was a short queue already but I was able to secure ticket number 10 which meant that I would be in the first group let in. Job done.

Entering the Union Theatre is rather like entering Narnia from a wardrobe and it always takes a moment or two to make sense of the layout after entering from the darkness. This time the stage was set up almost traditionally with all the seats arranged in three rows along the left-hand side. I was first in and eagerly grabbed the middle seat in the front row.

Girlfriends, as the poster honestly suggested, was the story of a group of women in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) during WWII. This premise made for an unusual musical with ten female voices and only two men (pilots). These were used to good effect and there was a lot of group singing throughout the show.

There was also a lot of group movement, like squad bashing, and the choreography was a defining feature of the show. This came to a delightful head in a duet between one of the girls and a pilot that was a neat mix of dancing and acting (while singing), i.e. the dance helped to tell the story rather than just being there for decoration.

That story was a fairly simple one of an assortment of young women thrown together, for different reasons, during the war and of two young men who faced the high possibility of death every time they took to the skies. The women reacted and adjusted differently to the situation and there were several running plot lines about their personal lives, such as the Scottish woman who was desperate to go home when she heard about the bombing of Glasgow.

The simple plot left space for the music and movement, space which they gleefully filled. Good music does not need a plot, as Tristan und Isolde proves. There is always a balance between the various components of a musical or opera but that does not mean that they all need to have the same weight, only that the total weight is enough to satisfy the intellect and the soul. Girlfriends got it right.

One thing that I did find a little hard to get used to was that all the women wore identical uniforms and they all had identical 40's hairstyles so it was hard for me to tell some of them apart! I caught myself looking for distinguishing features in hands and legs.

The music was the, by then, familiar Howard Goodall sound with lots of catchy well-structured tunes that were repeated in snatches as themes to the story and also to improve their familiarity. It's a simple trick and it worked (again).

While there were clearly, and expectedly, some musical similarities between the three shows they proved to be a colourful combination; Girlfriends had a large group of women, Love Story was about one couple and the dreaming had a large and diverse cast of characters. That variety helped to make the Howard Goodall Season the success that it was.

Girlfriends was a fitting finale to the excellent season that was only let down by being so short! I was completely unaware of Howard Goodall's musicals beforehand but now I will make more of an effort to seek them out.

Lovely Love Story at the Union Theatre

I certainly had more important things to do on the Sunday afternoon but none better.

With an early start to my holiday the next day, and things to clear before doing so, there was plenty to do at home but I had enjoyed the first part of the Howard Goodall Season at the Union Theatre, the dreaming, so much that I was determined to see the second part and this was the only performance that I could get to. So I went.

The Union Theatre has the advantage for me of being a short brisk walk away from Waterloo and so I could get there and back fairly quickly to minimise the time lost to important chores. I had to make some allowance for the Sunday timetable and possible delays but in the end I got there just after 2pm. I though that was early but I was given ticket number 25 so quite a few people had tried harder then me to get one of the best seats.

I used the spare half hour wisely by supping a Becks.

The Union Theatre loads people in groups of ten so I was in the third group. I was first in of that group and that won me a front row seat in one corner of the stage. That was plenty good enough.

I know that I had not seen the film and am I pretty certain that I did not read the book either but some of the plot had seeped through to my consciousness, something to do with ice hockey,  death and love means never having to say you're sorry. That relative ignorance was bliss and I was able to sit down and let the story take me wherever it wanted to go.

Howard Goodall had taken a fairly standard approach to the music with an opening song for the whole cast that was echoed at the end and with plenty of pretty catchy tunes in the middle some of which were also repeated to help them to stick in the memory.

It worked, as it had at the dreaming, and I caught several people humming tunes at the break and at the end.

The story impressed me less. The man was rather unpleasant toward both his family and his girlfriend/wife. I was hoping that it was him who died so I was even sadder at the ending when it wasn't.

The production was neatly unobtrusive. It used props sparingly and these were sometimes swapped in one corner of the stage while the action happened in another. That helped the story to flow which it needed to do.

This was a simple love story with only two parties so the musical relied a lot on their skills and they were both good. Perhaps it was because I cared for her more but the woman, Victoria Serra, was the heart and soul of the show for me. The couple were supported by a small and very able cast that sang beautifully and acted tenderly.

Love Story was never going to be my sort of story, even less so when the wrong one of them died, but the music and the singing more than made up for the plot and I left very happy and vindicated in my decision to sacrifice a busy afternoon to see it.

the dreaming at the Union Theatre was all sorts of beautiful

There were various reasons why I was keen to see the dreaming and the Shakespeare connection was the least of them.

My initial interest came from the composer, Howard Goodall. I would hardly claim to be familiar with his music, apart from the Red Dwarf theme obviously, but I had seen him talk about musing on TV often enough to know something about his character. My second interest came from the Union Theatre as I had seen a blistering version of Lear on by first visit there. I also liked the space, small intimate theatres are my thing.

My planning for the day went well and after some time exploring Somerset House I still had plenty of time to eat at The Refinery in Southwark Street before heading to the cafe at the Union Theatre for some coffee and cake, always a good start to an evening.

The routine had changed slightly from my first visit and this time they let people in according to the ticket number they were given when they arrived. Unaware of this, I had not claimed my ticket immediately on arrival so, sporting number 12, I was let in with the second group. That was good enough to get a front row (only row, actually) seat on the right-hand side, much where I had sat for parts of Lear.

Another difference this time was that the rows of seats were away from the walls rather than being up against them. This was to create space for the multitude of characters to move around. That made the main stage area even smaller and even more intimate. Lovely.

the dreaming was pretty much A Midsummer Night’s Dream but was also noticeably different. It had magic potions to make the wrong people fall in love with each other and had a play within the play but the lovers were gentlefolk in WWI era England and the play was about St George slaying the dragon.

There was a large cast and even then most of the actors had to double-up as gentlefolk and woodfolk to cover all the parts. A large cast meant a wide range of voices and the opportunity to combine them in various pleasurable ways.

The music was superbly constructed so that it flowed like one piece, much more like an opera than a play with disparate songs added. It was all very pretty and very English turn-of-the-century too and called to mind Butterworth, Parry and Bridge (from my limited knowledge of such things). The success of the music was seen in the way that it hung on the lips of the audience as we left.

The lyrics were poetic and more complex than is sometimes the case with musicals that prefer to tell simple stories with simple songs. The Shakespearean feel was maintained in the new words even down the the bawdy nature of some of them.

The production was amazing and accomplished so much with a few costumes and fewer props. When they wanted us to see a river they just told us that it was there are we saw it.

Everything about the show was magical; the music, the lyrics, the singing, the acting, the movement, the staging and the interaction with the audience. It was an immensely rich experience with so much going on all the time, not least some of the characters crouching behind me to hide from those on the main stage.

The best news is that the dreaming was just the first part of a Howard Goodall season of three musicals. I will also be going to the other two.