Christmas Romcoms Take 2: Back & "Better" Than Ever!by Randi / January 17, 2024I don’t know why we slept so long on the 2023 Best Musical Olivier winner, but better late than never. Actually no, I do know why: it’s because husbo thought it would be ‘too English’ for my liking based simply on his knowledge that I hate colloquial English abbreviations like ‘brekkie’ so he says I’m ‘resistant to becoming British’ but little does he know I sign all my texts with x or even xx sometimes!
‘Standing at the Sky’s Edge’ takes place in Sheffield over three different timelines, telling stories of the people living in one specific flat over three generations, from standard starter home to projects to gentrified little zooplas. The stories of the madly-in-love ’60s newlyweds, the ’80s refugees from Liberia, and the posho escaping dramaz in London in the present intertwine nicely at first and then devastatingly later, all set to Richard Hawley (famous British musician? Pulp?)’s back catalogue and poss some new songs? Is this a jukebox musical? Who can say, but no.
I don’t say this often so gird your loins: the book is good. It’s captivating and the various timelines keep things interesting, and just when someone gets annoying you get to switch to someone else. I was pissed that I could tell early on from the subtle clues (“we got all four of your clues!” “amazing! actually I left more than 1200 clues but I’m glad you got enough to figure it out!”) that there would be a tragedy, and it was obvious which character it would befall, and I was like “could we please have one thing that isn’t tragic!” but it was well done and so emotionally charged (slash manipulating no jk I’m okay) that I was pretty much ugly crying for the last 20 minutes. And sure that’s not the rarest occurrence during quality musical theatre but there does need to be a legitimate connection forged.
I was disappointed at first that it seems very much ‘play with music’ rather than ‘musical’, because aside from Laura Pitt-Pulver’s Act I solo, the music wasn’t actually driving story or fleshing out the characters; it was just using music to have music. But the second act’s songs were more purposeful, I think…or maybe I got less angry about it. Both good options! The first post-P.Pulver’s-sad-I-Want-song-to actually-be-about-the-action song (actually it was about half that song, because at first it seemed like another ‘let’s have someone in the ensemble grab a mic and just sing one of these songs’ but then it turned into actually being about the action in a nice little switcherooround) was a catchy super-belted number from LPP’s estranged girlfriend that we heard so much about (LPP’s Poppy (like my dog!) had talked incessantly about her ex Nicky but I knew immediately that it was a garl Nikki because no boys are called Nicky anymore but Z thought that was a well hidden surprise; I guess he didn’t realize the Nicky change of our generation). I was like ‘oh wow this chick has a super strong belt…this chick sounds familiar…THIS CHICK IS BLOODY ELLE!’ As in the best show we saw a few years back at the Fringe, Bloody Elle (real name Lauryn Redding)! So that was a lovely surprise.
The weaving together of the three well-balanced timelines feels fluid and unforced. Important historical events and political attitudes are noted, affecting the characters but not inserted forcibly or in a heavy-handed manner (hooray for storytelling and not the new wave of ‘here is what you should think!’ storyshouting). Like with our Liberian refugee family, the audience can remember for themselves how important it is for Britain to have open borders, and with our coal miner ’60s men railing against Thatcher, audiences can think ‘were some of these men in Billy Elliot’. The ways the stories connect (or not! no spoilers!) are initially revealed with subtlety that was a breath of fresh air in modern playwriting. Even though this theatre feels enormous (and breathable! all this air!) and the show tries to fill that space with loud noise and some big production numbers, it ends up feeling like an intimate little show that cuts you real deep, Shrek, which is pretty special.
INFO
SATSE (fun to say!) plays the Gillian Lynne theatre until August 3.
I LOVE this theatre. All the seats have decent legroom and more importantly, they have really high backs, so no one coughs into your hair.
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I Can’t Even Deal With: “Garage Sale Mystery” on TV
I can’t really express the fluctuating emotions I am feeling now that I know this exists:
So, this is actually happening
No no don’t touch that…dollhouse furniture?
I’m glad Aunt Becky is working since getting off that soft-core porn from the CW, the 90210 reboot. But did she had to pick the TV movie with the most hilariously awful title and premise in recent history for her comeback?
Hallmark Channel’s new movie, “Garage Sale Mystery”, is already poised to be the network’s greatest achievement this century. It’s about a woman (Lori Loughlin/Rebecca Donaldson/Aunt Becky Katsopolis) who is really good at antiquing and buying other people’s crap when they throw this crap on the front lawns of their houses and expect passersby to pay them money in exchange for said crap, which the passersby then pick up with their hands and carry into their own houses. Or, what we Americans call ‘garage sales’.
Hallmark Channel’s new movie, “Garage Sale Mystery”, is already poised to be the network’s greatest achievement this century. It’s about a woman (Lori Loughlin/Rebecca Donaldson/Aunt Becky Katsopolis) who is really good at antiquing and buying other people’s crap when they throw this crap on the front lawns of their houses and expect passersby to pay them money in exchange for said crap, which the passersby then pick up with their hands and carry into their own houses. Or, what we Americans call ‘garage sales’.
So, Aunt Becky, in her antiquing glory, becomes Detective Aunt Becky when a string of burglaries occur in a neighborhood that really loves the aforementioned good-natured exchange of crap. She somehow puts her skills at buying crap to use in detectiving who the burglar is. This is from the official website’s description of the movie:
“As she gets closer to the truth, Jennifer learns that crime solving can be far more dangerous than any garage sale.”
HAHAH. I mean, it doesn’t really get any better than that. Because we all know garage sales are extreeeemely dangerous. That’s what town curfews are really for – to stop people from the danger of meeting their neighbors and effectively digging through their trash. Gotta protect people’s secrets, you know! I wonder if that’s the message Hallmark has been going for all these years, with their impressive litany of made-for-mockery titles. Maybe all Hallmark movies form one sophisticated case for strengthened privacy laws.
“As she gets closer to the truth, Jennifer learns that crime solving can be far more dangerous than any garage sale.”
HAHAH. I mean, it doesn’t really get any better than that. Because we all know garage sales are extreeeemely dangerous. That’s what town curfews are really for – to stop people from the danger of meeting their neighbors and effectively digging through their trash. Gotta protect people’s secrets, you know! I wonder if that’s the message Hallmark has been going for all these years, with their impressive litany of made-for-mockery titles. Maybe all Hallmark movies form one sophisticated case for strengthened privacy laws.
“As she gets closer to the truth, Jennifer learns that crime solving can be far more dangerous than any garage sale.”
She’s so happy and blurry
It is accurate, I guess. Solving crime can be more dangerous than a garage sale; it’s just not guaranteed to be. We all know garage sales are up there with walking on beds of nails and eating raw produce in Asia. Hiiiighway toooo the danger zone.
Anyway, I cannot wait to see this movie, and I’m sure you feel the same way. I hope it’s good, for Aunt Becky’s sake. Just look at how happy and optimistic she looks at left! But she doesn’t even realize it’s all gonna come crashing down. I have a feeling this film is going to epic. Stay tuned; we are totally going to live-blog this. Oh crap, it’s airing on Yom Kippur. Ok, someone remind me to DVR this anti-Semitic piece of wonderment.
Anyway, I cannot wait to see this movie, and I’m sure you feel the same way. I hope it’s good, for Aunt Becky’s sake. Just look at how happy and optimistic she looks at left! But she doesn’t even realize it’s all gonna come crashing down. I have a feeling this film is going to epic. Stay tuned; we are totally going to live-blog this. Oh crap, it’s airing on Yom Kippur. Ok, someone remind me to DVR this anti-Semitic piece of wonderment.
Fiddler on the Roof at the Menier Chocolate Factory: As Moving and Important as Ever
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Fiddler on the Roof, playing at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory until March 9.
Even though I have known Fiddler on the Roof by heart my entire life (I think Jews are born knowing it (jk I was also in it once upon a time)), I am always surprised at how great a show it is, every time I see it. When a bit of time passes in between viewings – like now, since the last time I saw a production was the 2016 Broadway production with Danny Burstein (entirely perfection) – I’ll recall how special a show it is to me personally but forget a little bit that it is a masterpiece simply as written. And then the show starts, and it is just nonstop onslaught of perfection: fantastic song after fantastic song, utterly hilarious lines, heartbreaking emotional depth. After seeing another fabulous production of this sweeping epic show, I can’t imagine ever letting Fiddler slip from the forefront of my mind again when I think of exceptional musicals in the entire canon. London’s Menier Chocolate Factory virtually always produces top-notch productions, and its Fiddler continues the trend.
In a rather small, cramped room, the audience gets as close to the action as possible, feeling dropped into Anatevka with Tevye, his wife Golde, and their five daughters, along with all the delightful townspeople. This small space (which gets overheated fast, btw, like a real schvitz) instantly provides a different experience from other productions: with everyone on the same level, with just the floor in the middle as the stage, it’s more intimate than any big theatre with a traditional proscenium can achieve. I’m curious to see how this will change when it transfers to the West End; I hope they retain some aspects of this intimacy.
The set design uses the space wonderfully, with the small wooden houses and their pointed roofs against the one side of the room without audience rows, and the cast coming in and out of the same entrance that the audience used, passing right by my aisle seat (obviously nearest this exit; it’s a long-ass show) so close that I had to lean away several times to avoid being hit with chairs and luggage and whatever else they were carrying out. I highly recommend sitting by this door (my perfect seat was C35), because it lets you witness without a doubt my favorite aspect of this production, differentiating it from all others: the cast would continue their conversations as they exited the stage/theatre, fully in character and saying remarkable (or completely banal, but the fact that I was hearing their extra conversations made everything about it remarkable) things to each other that only I and a handful of others similarly placed could hear. That they continuously went to so much extra effort to convincingly inhabit their characters for so few people filled me with so much joy. When anyone talks to me this season about getting rid of t-shirts that no longer bring them joy I’m like, if you didn’t sit by the door in Fiddler, you don’t know squat about what brings joy, also just clean your house more.
This production stars Andy Nyman as Tevye, who was amazing as Charles Guiteau in the Menier’s Assassins a few years ago. His Tevye is sarcastic and cynical, which helps his humor come across. In his first big song, “If I Were A Rich Man”, he tries to make this overdone classic his own, with the daba deeba deeba da’s instead becoming grunts of pain as he rubs his strained forearms. I appreciated this change, not only because I do the same thing after I use battle ropes, but because it is hard to make any aspect of Tevye different after so many years and so many incarnations. I didn’t love the ugh oohs instead of the daba deebas but I loved that they tried something different. Being so close to Tevye in his moments of internal soliloquy made his impossible struggle to do right by his daughters and by his religion’s traditions more understandable than ever. His precarious perch between the paths he can choose, which he compares to that of a fiddler on the roof (you knew why it was called that, right?) is conveyed with such emotional depth. Even when he makes decisions you think are wrong, it’s difficult to really say that he’s wrong when you know how impossible his position seems to him.
The three main daughters (sorry Bielke and Spritze, but you will get your Susan B. Anthony in the annals of history when I eventually name two small dogs after you) were all a pleasant surprise. I was distracted for the entire first half because I would have bet my life that Chava (Kirsty MacLaren) was played by the actress who played Tanna on Gilmore Girls, but alas, it was not, so it’s a good thing no one took that bet. Along with Molly Osbourne’s Tzeitel and Harriet Bunton’s Hodel, all three daughters were wonderful. Even though Tzeitel seems like the main one, she doesn’t actually get much to do after “Matchmaker”, yet she made her mark. Bunton’s “Far From the Home I Love” was beautiful. Their male counterparts were great too, so great that Husbo and I decided that one of our future dogs will also be named The Tailor Motel Kamzoil (yes, in full). I have to give Stewart Clarke props for opening Act II with one of the worst songs in the musical theatre, let alone one given the crucial role of opening a second act. “Now I Have Everything” is like the even more awkward version of the end of Javert’s “Soliloquy” you know when it sounds like he hits the wrong note at the end, before it resolves? but for an entire song. That’s “Now I Have Everything”. It’s honestly mean to make actors sing this song, but Clarke’s Perchik did as great a job as is possible.
One of the best parts of knowing a show so well is being able to appreciate the tiny things they do differently. Considering how many productions of Fiddler I’ve seen, I can’t believe this was the first to have the mamas, in their verse in “Tradition”, actually whisper when they sing “a quiet home” (as in “who must know the way to make a proper home, a quiet home, a kosher home”). It’s so obvious! How has no one done that? It was adorable. Also the sons’ verse made me laugh harder than ever when they end their intro with “I hear they’ve picked a bride for me, I hope…(super long pause)…she’s pretty.” It’s such a bad line and so awkward but I LOVE IT.
In the whole three hours, there were only a few drawbacks. With a rather small company and tiny space, “L’Chaim” didn’t have the verve it usually has. While still great, it wasn’t a showstopper with its usual energy. On the other hand (as Tevye would say), this size and space let the wedding scene feel more present and real. “Chavaleh” was insanely heartbreaking because it’s impossible for it not to be, but Chava wasn’t onstage during it, so Tevye was just singing to himself. I’ve been destroyed by productions that have decided to have Chava dancing during the song, as an apparition of Tevye’s memory. I mean it was nice to just cry and not screamcry for a change, but there’s a small missed opportunity there. My only other issue was with Yente. Oy. Yente is hilarious as written (like so much of the show, surprising every time), so it’s hard to mess her up and easy to make her even funnier with a strong comic actress. This Yente was not a strong comic actress. There’s so much potential handed on a silver platter and she didn’t do anything with it. To quote Ross, “it took her what, like, what, uh, I don’t know, ahh, ughh, a WEEK? to get out a sentence?” “Yeah it’s annoying, isn’t it.”
But otherwise everything was wonderful and a powerful reminder, as always, that it’s still sadly relevant for us today. At the end, when the inhabitants of Anatevka march out of the town and out of the theatre, they had them secretly circle back through one of the houses so it made it seem like an endless trek of people. It was an effective way to get me even angrier at anyone who supports a government that turns away refugees. I was looking around at that audience through my tears and thinking ‘any of you who are crying and applauding who also voted for Brexit or harsher immigration laws are utter jackwagons.’ What can I say, no one was on their phone so I had unused anger at the ready. Anyway, Harnick and Bock are absolute geniuses and I love their damn show so forking much.
INFORMATION
The show runs 3 hours, always. Some productions are technically 2 hours 55 minutes, some are 3 and 5, it’s all roughly 3 hours and so is this one. I didn’t realize that when I was in it in high school so like all those parents watching their kids do 5 shows in a weekend really deserve medals. At least our Tevye was amazing; I cannot imagine what it is like to see a scrawny little white waspy tween whose voice hasn’t settled yet play Tevye like they have at so many other schools.
It was recently announced that this production will be transferring to the West End, giving you plenty of time to see it. Mazel!