East End Review

Tag: Rosemary Branch

Rosemary Branch theatre founders bow out after 20 years

Passing the baton (l-r): new artistic directors of Rosemary Branch Genevieve Taricco and Scarlett Plouviez Comnas, with founders Cecilia Darker and Cleo Sylvestre

Whether to see an uproarious pantomime or an adaptation of Jane Eyre, a trip to the Rosemary Branch has always been a byword for a good night out.

But this month the Rosie’s founders and artistic directors, Cecilia Darker and Cleo Sylvestre, have decided to call it a day after 20 years at the helm of the theatre pub.

“Someone called us an institution the other day, I quite liked that,” muses Cecilia Darker, who at 67 is looking forward to spending more time on the tennis court.

“When you run a theatre it’s so all-consuming, often 12 hour days and with certainly no distinction between week days and weekends.”

“I’ve always felt in all my careers that there comes a time that you start to plateau, and as soon as you start to plateau then it’s time to move on. And I’m just about to get to that plateau when I know that it’s time to move on.”

It was 1993 when Cecilia Darker decided to take a chance and blow her inheritance on a dilapidated pub on Shepperton Road.

The building was once a Victorian music hall, and after the squatters moved out, Darker and her business partners set about restoring the pub to its former glory.

She soon gave up her job at the Central School of Ballet and convinced her friend and neighbour Cleo Sylvestre to come on board and help run the theatre.

Sylvestre, for her part, had had a long career in theatre and screen. She had made a record with the Rolling Stones aged 17, appeared opposite Alec Guinness on the West End, and was the first black actress in a British soap, taking roles in Coronation Street and Crossroads.

“It was a veritable baptism of fire,” Darker recalls. “Together we learnt how to run a small theatre, making lots of mistakes along the way.”

Neither Darker nor Sylvestre thought they would still be at it 20 years later, but having helped launch the careers of actors, writers, directors and designers and picked up several awards along the way, the pair have decided to take pass the baton on to the next generation.

“It’s difficult to single things out in 20 years,” Darker says, when asked to name some of the highlights of her time at the Rosie.

“I was speaking to a theatre critic a couple of months ago, and he was saying ‘tell me about the Rosie and what things have hit the West End after they’ve gone to you.

“I was gobsmacked and I said it’s nothing to do with the West End what we do, it’s giving young people a chance to do something else.

“It’s a marvellous stepping stone from drama school to the next part of your career and Cleo and I are both incredibly proud of having supported so many people who have done that – those are the pleasures rather than the individual productions.”

To mark the 20-year anniversary, Sylvestre revived her one-woman show, The Marvellous Adventures of Mary Seacole, and 20 play readings of mostly new work have been presented throughout the year, with the Rosie’s patron Fay Weldon rumoured to be writing the final one.

Is this the end of theatre at the Rosemary Branch? I am assured not. Darker still owns part of the pub, and hopes she and Cleo can help out the new resident theatre company waiting in the wings.

An experimental performance company called Unattended Items, headed up by theatre-makers Genevieve Taricco and Scarlett Plouviez Comnas will be attempting to fill their shoes.

The new directors will curate a programme of new work for an initial period of two years from this month.

Working alongside artists from a variety of disciplines, the company will seek out innovative ways of engaging audiences.

Comnas used to intern at the Rosie, so whilst the programming will certainly change, the stage is set for a smooth transition.

Rosemary Branch
2 Shepperton Road, N1 3DT
rosemarybranch.com

June 16, 2016
Mary Seacole brought to the stage at the Rosemary Branch

Cleo Sylvestre as Mary Seacole. Photograph: Cleo Sylvestre

Walking into the Rosemary Branch Theatre, I feel instantly welcome. At 5pm the bar is bustling with customers young and old, with artistic director Cleo Sylvestre flashing a fuchsia-lipped smile as she greets each one.

“My friend Cecilia and I have been running the Rosie for 20 years now,” Sylvestre says. “My husband had just died, and Cecil was teaching ballet upstairs. It was really a baptism of fire, neither of us knew what we were doing.”

It seems Sylvestre’s life has been marked by a series of colourful career moves, having worked in music, film and on the West End. She points at a black and white photograph in a corner. It’s her with some “faces you might recognise” – The Rolling Stones, with whom she recorded ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’ in 1969. “I had a great time.

The Stones were releasing music that no one had ever heard before, but I thought that rather than just going to loads of gigs, I wanted to be the gig”.

But despite her musical credentials, theatre is her first love, she says. “I love being able to go to the theatre and forget about the outside world for an hour. I think it’s all about being able to bring something to life.”

To mark the Rosie’s 20th anniversary, Sylvestre’s acclaimed one-woman show, The Marvellous Adventures of Mary Seacole is returning to the stage for a short run this month.

Based on the autobiography of the same name, it recounts Jamaican-born Seacole’s experiences of the Crimean War during which she set up a hospital using abandoned metal and driftwood to aid sick and wounded troops.

Whereas Florence Nightingale’s legacy has long been part of the school curriculum, Seacole’s contribution to British history has been largely overlooked.

Sylvestre admits she knew little about her until the 1980s. “I read her autobiography while my children were still very young and thought she was an amazing woman. Initially I wrote it for children. I wanted them to hear her story and get across that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.”

Sylvestre is also an ambassador for The Mary Seacole Statue Appeal, whose efforts have finally paid off, with a monument set to be unveiled this spring. It will be the first statue of a named black woman in Britain.

Portraying Seacole’s personality as well as her achievements was vital for Sylvestre. “I think she was quite a complex character; she was tough, she was intrepid. I think she had a very warm heart, but she had a lot of steel to have gone through what she did.

I also think – how can I phrase this without putting her down – that while she mixed with people from all walks of life, she didn’t suffer fools gladly. She could hold her own.”

The play promises to be an opportunity to hear the story of one remarkable woman, told by another.

The Marvellous Adventures of Mary Seacole is at Rosemary Branch Theatre, 2 Shepperton Road, N1 3DT from 9-11 March.
www.rosemarybranch.co.uk

March 8, 2016
Billy the kid review: panto hoedown

Peddler: Micky Mumford (Bruce Graham). Photograph: Bill Knight

Know any partners who aren’t into panto? A good test of any scrooge’s credentials would be a trip to Charles Court Opera’s ‘boutique’ panto-western Billy the Kid.

Picture outlaw Billy as a tap-dancing goat and cast a cockney salesman as the cartoon villain and you’ll be halfway to the Rosemary Branch ranch.

Peddler Micky Mumford (Bruce Graham) wants debt-saddled Buckaroo Dan, played by the sweetly swashbuckling Joanna Marie Skillett, to sell him his prize goat (and best mate) Billy.

On a mission to get Billy stuffed, Mumford follows the cowboys on a caper through Indian country, led by pretty (and indentured) seamstress squaw Pocabeaver (Nichola Jolley) to search for treasure to pay Dan’s bills.

Can the friends stick together and save the Billy goat’s hide?

John Savournin, also directing and choreographing, is a riot as saloon sexpot Nellie, kept busy resisting the advances of the lusty town Sheriff (the talented Amy J. Payne), who wants to her settle down and raise “brothel sprouts”.

The amorous Sheriff has more luck with Nellie’s long-lost sister Chief Raging Hormone, played by a now-moccasined Savournin, who succumbs to the moustachioed marshal and agrees to make “Cact-I into Cact-us”.

The couple’s coquetry is a highlight and reaches its climax as Raging Hormone – a tower of matronly magnetism, treats her lover to an erotic basket weaving demonstration in a rather special lampoon of Patrick Swayze’s pottery wheel scene from Ghost. A row of peyote-fuelled coyote puppets also give a killer rendition of ‘Mr Sandman’, showcasing the impressive vocal talent of the entire cast.

Musical director and keyboard player David Eaton deserves credit, as it’s all about the songs, really. For a reputed ‘leftfield’ panto Billy the Kid is entirely unsubversive, except perhaps for any Indigenous People of the Americas in the audience.

Despite resting happily in the traditional trilogy of pun, innuendo and slapstick, the ‘Look behind yous’ are notably absent. Depending on your predilection for participation this will be a blessing or a travesty.

If it’s the latter then opt for a seat with leg room.

Then, like your reviewer, you too could find yourself donning pink marigolds and milking a furry chipboard buffalo on stage (we couldn’t make cheese, no whey!).

Worth it for a front row seat at this wise-crackin’, barn-stormin’ show.

Billy the Kid is at the Rosemary Branch Theatre, 2 Shepperton Road, N1 3DT until 10 January
www.rosemarybranch.co.uk

December 15, 2014
There’s a Monster in the Lake – review

Spoken Mirror production company: (L-R) Tara Postma (standing), Hugo Nicholson, Cressida Bonas, Zoe Stevens (sitting top), Zena Carswell (sitting front) and Florence Keith-Roach (standing) Photograph: Adrian Sherratt

Nothing is sacred from health and safety checks in this surreal production by Spoken Mirror at the Rosemary Branch theatre, featuring a headache-prone devil, two squabbling sisters and an out-of-shape wolf played by Cressida Bonas.

Inspired by playwright Tallulah Brown’s four months working with Mira Hamermesh towards the end of the Polish filmmaker’s life, the Lily Ashley-directed play flits between a bland, uncompromising care home and the wooded mental refuge of the ageing Kazek, with songs delivered by Kazek’s daughters and a clutch of unseen sirens.

“I want to die…let me die!” utters Kazek at the outset, played with tremulous, stubborn vulnerability by Zoe Stevens. To the audience’s relief, the statement does not trigger a play-long debate on life versus death, but rather a thoughtful meditation on memory, story-telling and making amends.

Kazek’s carer (significantly named just ‘Nurse’), is executed with wonderful impassivity by Tara Postma and provides necessary injections of humour into the narrative. Her straight-laced and unsympathetic – though not unkind – method of care is sharply contrasted to Kazek’s daughters emotional coming-to-terms with their father’s ageing process.

Esme (played with wide-eyed impetuosity by Florence Keith-Roach) is the idealistic daughter, excellent with their father but absent when it comes to the gruelling practicalities of his decline – which her more pragmatic sister Mari (Zena Carswell) has to take on. Brown deftly describes the fraught sibling interplay, universal to those who have had to deal with poorly parents.

There’s A Monster In The Lake is perhaps most poignant when highlighting the helplessness felt by those faced with the impending death of themselves or loved ones. “He’s my dad, not my child!” Mari says sharply to Nurse. The hints that Kazek was not always the perfect father also combat the romanticisation of the father-child role and add depth to the fantasy-fuelled vignettes.

The care home scenes are the best drawn, but the woods also have a charm, with Cressida Bonas playing a sprightly, health-and-safety-obsessed wolf, springing across the stage with alacrity, whilst the lecherous, maladied devil (Hugo Nicholson) nuisances his way through the dark undergrowth.

A child-like wistfulness persists throughout the play, a thread of fantasy and hope which challenges the idea of age equating to wisdom, and sensitively explores what it means to care and be cared for.

There’s A Monster in the Lake is at the Rosemary Branch theatre, Shepperton Road, N1 3DT until 19 July.

July 16, 2014
The Trial of the Jew Shylock – review

On trial: Ashley Gunstock as Shylock (right)

Not all of Shakespeare’s works remain popular, but The Merchant of Venice is well-known and often performed today despite the cloud of controversy surrounding it. Perhaps the reason for this longevity is its capacity to keep audiences guessing. Is it a racist play, or a play about racism? Is the character of Shylock villainous or sympathetic? How did Shakespeare view him, and did he ever even meet any Jews?

The Trial of the Jew Shylock is a new adaption by theatre company Poetic Justice, now showing at the Rosemary Branch. But if the title and promotional blurb has led you to believe this is something fresh and different, you might be disappointed – this is Shakespeare dressed in contemporary clothes, and you’ve seen that before. But that’s not to say this version of the play has nothing interesting to offer.

As the title indicates, the play centres on the character of Shylock. But while it is hard to escape the conclusion that Shylock, with his merciless insistence on claiming his pound of flesh, is a bit of a baddie, this adaptation goes some way to suggest reasons for his behaviour. We see a man continually abused by his Christian neighbours, whose chief complaints against him seem to be his Jewishness and his perceived love of money. Their open anti-Semitism is jarring to a contemporary audience, as is the accusation of greed, since money, as this production is at pains to point out, is all anyone around here wants. His abusers despise him for being a money lender while availing themselves of his services, and his beloved daughter has abandoned him for a Christian man who loves her for her money as much as herself.

This Shylock spends most of his time on the defensive, bitterly conscious of the injustice of his situation, and his choosing to reject the offer of big money in favour of an essentially valueless piece of flesh suggests not greed, but rage.

Ashley Gunstock does a remarkable job of showing the humanity and complexity of a man consistently objectified by everyone around him. His delivery of the ‘Hath not a Jew eyes’ speech and the final forced conversion scene are particularly stunning, confronting the audience with questions about who is showing inhumanity towards whom. Perhaps the victim or villain? debate applies to more than one character in this play.

The Trial of the Jew Shylock is the Rosemary Branch theatre, 2A Shepperton Road, N1 3DT until 1 June.

May 21, 2014
Wuthering Heights – review

Heathcliff (Jack Benjamin) and Cathy (Lucinda Lloyd) on the wild and windy North Yorkishire Moors

Emily Brontë’s tale of unyielding, wilful love is familiar to many, but this new adaptation at the Rosemary Branch theatre breathes fresh Yorkshire gales into the 19th century novel and sharply evokes the pain of Cathy and Heathcliff’s self-thwarted love.

Cathy (played by Hackney-based actress Lucinda Lloyd) is tempestuous, provocative, child-like – a delight and a nightmare. She haunts the play and Heathcliff, himself conveyed by Jack Benjamin with exactly the right blend of hang-dog forlornness and rough jealousy.

A necessary anchor to the story, loquacious housekeeper Nelly Dean provides the human bridge between different narrative times and strands, conveying the extreme passions of those she cares for. She is both a narrator and a player, as essential to the story as Cathy, or Emily Brontë herself. Emma Fenney is fantastic in this role – sympathetic, busy-bodying and far-sighted.

Cathy and Heathcliff’s at times fraternal, at times sensual (though unfulfilled) love and its increasing elements of jealousy and possession is captured by the moans and jangles of the Yorkshire moors – music composed by Ben Davies especially for the production, which flits through the narrative like the ghost of Kathy and the shadow of Heathcliff’s resentment.

In the book the reader’s sense of time is distorted as Nelly narrates the story through up to three different speakers, going back and forth between her present-day conversation with Lockwood and the past of the Heathcliffs, Lintons and Earnshaws. The continual reinforcement of Wuthering Heights as a story is conveyed in Helen Tennison’s production by the emphasis on reading – as a catalyst for the love of young Catherine and Hareton, a prop in the simple, yet dramatic choreography, and an acknowledgment of the text’s faithfulness to the original.

The sense of time winding onwards, and the intricate interweaving of the family’s fates, seemingly inevitably, often catastrophically, is complemented by the cast changes – George Haynes and James Hayward play up to four characters each, whilst Helen Watkinson doubles up as Isabella Linton and young Cathy.

A story like Wuthering Heights could easily become claustrophobic in the close confines of theatre, but Tennison’s production keeps us engaged through the haunting play of light and shadow, jangling music and the portrayal of Cathy and Heathcliff’s raging love.

Wuthering Heights is at the Rosemary Branch, 2 Shepperton Road, N1 3DT until 27 April.

April 14, 2014
Wuthering Heights – preview

Cathy and Heathcliff embrace in Wuthering Heights. Photograph: Andy Barker

Kate Bush is not the only Wuthering Heights fan coming to town. Helen Tennison’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s haunting tale will be performed at the intimate Rosemary Branch theatre for a three-week run this month.

Director Tennison is a long-term collaborator with the Rosie and has been central in designing the set, which evokes the wild Yorkshire Moors where Cathy and Heathcliff’s tragic love is played out.

“Like all the best directors, Helen has a particular vision,” says the Rosemary Branch’s artistic director Cecilia Darker.

“The set is so designed that you’re not sure whether you’re on the inside or the outside – it’s overgrown and covered in moss and lychen.”

One of the challenges of this production, Darker says, was adapting the play to very different spaces – from their six by six metre stage to the vast space of Shrewsbury’s Theatre Severn where the play will head to later on its tour.

But Tennison is excited about this challenge and says the strength of the acting combined with Brontë’s universally applicable story means it can resonate wherever it is staged.

“Brontë’s asking questions about how we love; I think that’s what draws people to it. We’re drawn to it because Cathy and Heathcliff’s love is so passionate, so raw and so all-encompassing.”

Cathy is played by local actress Lucinda Lloyd, one of the six actors in the young cast, some of whom play up to three parts.

Wuthering Heights is at the Rosemary Branch Theatre, 2 Shepperton Road, N1 3DT until 27 April.

April 10, 2014