In a non-reviewing capacity I have seen the Chess musical twice before. Both very expensive looking and sounding shows in London. I first saw the original West End cast by fluke of getting tickets from someone in the Prince Edward Theatre box office queue who was returning his due to family illness. Me and a friend had just come out of seeing a matinee of Les Miserables at the Palace Theatre. That was in June 1986. We hadn’t intended seeing the newly acclaimed Chess show but chance and fate intervened. It starred Elaine Page and Murray Head. It was rather good and especially exciting because both my friend and I were big fans of the new cast recording.
The second time was at the Coliseum Theatre in London with a large cast including Micheal Ball as Sergievsky and Tim Howar as Trumper. The cast was very big and they had members of the ENO doing the difficult choral work. I remember Howar coming down some steps with a Jumbo Jet image projected behind him as he came to cause havoc in the Merrano scene. Projection was used to magnify the actors. Being up in the highest possible cheaper balcony seats on 2nd June 2016 this was especially helpful visually as otherwise they would have looked like singing ants on the stage far below.
On today’s visit to the Duchess Theatre in Long Eaton to see BMTG’s version I wasn’t expecting to witness such epic productions on the scale of the professional London shows. I am reviewing on the Saturday matinee.
What I do see is a lot of local talent and musical theatre talent and some positively high quality impressive projection work and direction.
Gone are the black and white squares evident in much of the staging and promotional materials of the formerly mentioned productions and here we witness a cleverly connected mix of archive imagery, location imagery and hand held camera imagery offering visual close ups and insights into the main character’s inner worlds and torments. Like the intrusive video and television worlds they represent here we have a moving sepia landscape that exposes every flaw of the Chess players personalities, loves, ambitions and political backbiting chiefly from the USSR and US. Matt Powell and Abi Stott-Marshall are co-directors and co-choreographers and are the gifted creators of this sterling production and the media work.
Chess includes plenty of chances for singing some very complex choral harmonies. The BMTG ensemble are deeply impressive in this regard especially in the songs ‘The Story of Chess’, ‘Hymn to Chess’, ‘One Night In Bangkok’ and ‘Mechandisers’. Matt McAuley leads the company well with his strong and strict Arbiter. His diction through his excellent singing is spot on.
This amateur production has some super strong leads in Robert Stott-Marshall (Frederick Trumper), Sarah Evans – Bolger (Florence Vassy), Craig Arne (Anatoly Sergievsky), Brogan Jones (Svetlana Sergevsky). There are some credible and incredible vocals amongst them and they blow the theatre roof off with the big songs like ‘Nobody’s Side’, ‘Pity The Child ‘, and ‘Anthem’. More romantically, lamenting or passionate love-based songs such as the well known ‘I Know Him So Well’ ‘Mountain Duet’, and ‘You And I’ are beautifully achieved and offer tender songs relief from tempremental key sung and sung through dramas. The acting skills and still concentrated moments are wickedly impressive.
Equally impressive is Robert Charles as the Russian Alexander Molokov. Not only is Charles’ accent and singing top notch but he seems to really immerse himself into the role of the devious Soviet. Bobby Hughes is convincing as American Walter De Courcy.
This production is interesting in pushing forward the role and case of Florence Vassy and it works. A theatrical photographic memory is a good thing (if you have one, I don’t) and to be honest I can’t exactly recall the entire plot workings of my previous Chess experiences but I get the impression that some of the plot and thereby songs in this production have been re-arranged. Again, any changes help one to follow the complex plot more easily and to enhance the storylines are no bad thing. Finally, I cannot leave this matinee showing without praising conductor Ben Ward and his excellent band. What a overall brilliant amateur musical theatre production. Thanks for the invite on what has been a notably busy reviewing week for me at East Midlands Theatre.
Photos credit: Martin Holtom.
