Pygmalion – Shaw to Please ‘X Factor’ Fans

As Eliza (Rachel Fenwick) sells her flowers in Covent Garden, Professor Higgins (Steve Drowley) and Colonel Pickering (Wayne Fenton) are listening in. (PHOTO: PHIL MANSELL)

Anyone who enjoys TV shows like The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent will see that George Bernard Shaw got there first in his 1912 play Pygmalion, which formed the basis of the hit musical My Fair Lady.

The playwright anticipates the pleasures and dangers of taking the dreams of a working class girl and attempting to transform her into a star in this latest production by Newport Playgoers.

When Eliza (Rache Fenwick) is transformed into a lady she has many admirers including Freddie Eynsford Hill (Tyron Davies Sullivan) (PHOTO: PHIL MANSELL)

“Eliza Doolittle’s wish is modest by today’s ambitions – she wants to be a lady with a flower shop,” says the play’s director Kevin Myers. “So phonetics professor Henry Higgins admits her to his version of boot camp where she is scrubbed, clothed and subjected to intensive lessons in diction.

“For Higgins and his friend Colonel Pickering it’s an irresistible experiment – to teach Cockney flower girl Eliza to speak and act like a lady and pass her off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party. But for Eliza it’s a lifeline.”

The transformation from Cockney flower girl to well-spoken lady is complete. Rachel Fenwick as Eliza Doolittle. (PHOTO: PHIL MANSELL)

Higgins clearly sees Eliza, at least at first, as a human trophy he can add to his collection of professional triumphs, but when the end result produces a very ladylike Miss Doolittle, the lessons learned become much more far reaching. The successful musical My Fair Lady was based on this Bernard Shaw classic.

‘Pygmalion’ is at the Dolman Theatre from Wednesday 11 to Saturday 14 June at 7.15 pm, with an extra matinee performance on the Saturday at 2.30 pm. To book tickets call 01633 263670 or visit www.dolmantheatre.co.uk.

This production will also be going to the marvellous open air Minack Theatre in Cornwall in July.

Four times the fun and laughter in ‘Duets’

Shelley (Nicky Davies) overdoes the sangria while newly divorced ex-hubby Bobby (Graeme Johnson) looks on. (PHOTO: PHIL MANSELL)

Four pairs of characters at four crucial moments in their lives – welcome to the world of ‘Duets’. 

Newport Playgoers’ next production explores four very different relationships.

Jonathon and Wendy are on a blind date and hoping to get it right this time even though they’ve never got it right before. Barrie is not really interested in women but his secretary Janet sees that as no reason to stop trying.

Champagne corks pop when Janet (Clare Jacobs) goes to Barrie’s flat (Chris Bissex-Williams) for a meal. (PHOTO: PHIL MANSELL)

Shelley and Bobby have decided to holiday in Spain to finalise their divorce whilst drowning in cocktails. Angela is marrying for the third time to the dismay of brother Toby and amidst a barrage of bad omens and a dress resembling a parachute.

Wendy (Claudia Barnes) and Jonathon (Laurence Llewellyn) enjoy a quick tango on their blind date. (PHOTO: PHIL MANSELL)

Put them all together and you have a quartet of scenarios in a gloriously funny examination of the chaotic world of love and relationships. Peter Quilter’s award-winning play, which has much in common with the work of Neil Simon, blends humour with pathos. ‘Duets’ is a hilarious tribute to the strength and madness of the human heart.

‘Duets’ is at the Dolman Theatre from Wednesday 14  – Saturday 17 May at 7.15 pm, with an extra matinee performance on the Saturday at 2.30 pm. To book tickets call 01633 263670 or visit www.dolmantheatre.co.uk.

Toby (Jerry Grummit) panics when his sister Angela (Clare Drewett) spills coffee on her hideous dress moments before her third wedding. (PHOTO: PHIL MANSELL)

 

David Goes from Hero to Hitman in ‘Killer Joe’

David Constant as Joe, a Texas policeman who hires himself out as a hit man. (Photo: Phil Mansell)

Newport Playgoer David Constant has gone from playing clean-cut British hero Richard Hannay in ‘The 39 Steps’ to the role of a brutal hitman in ‘Killer Joe’.

In the play, set in Texas, David is a cop who moonlights as a contract killer.

Killer Joe takes the Smiths’ daughter Dottie (Abbie Thomas) to bed as a retainer against his final payoff (Photo: Phil Mansell)

He is hired by the sleazy “trailer trash” Smith family to murder their alcoholic mother whose life insurance money is needed to pay off the son’s debts.

However, once he steps into their trailer, their simple plan spirals out of control.

What follows is a cycle of TV watching, beer drinking, door slamming, violence, betrayal, degradation, possible incest – and a twist in the tale.

Award-winning ‘Killer Joe’ was the first stage play by Tracy Letts and it is a blackly comic, ferociously violent and blatantly sexual assault on the senses.

Dottie (Abbie Thomas) feels the drunken wrath of her father Ansel (Stuart Fouweather) (Photo: Phil Mansell)

The Smiths are a family whose moral compass has lost its magnet. Letts paints this bunch of trailer-park trash as less than human. He encourages us to laugh at their blind materialism, their uncleanliness and their complete lack of loyalty, family sense, and civic responsibility.

Killer Joe (David Constant) takes sexual custody of teenage daughter Dottie (Abbie Thomas) as a retainer until he is paid. (Photo: Phil Mansell)

“You’re in the trailer with us,” says David. “Our director Nathan Hodge is trying to erase the idea that you’re watching a play – we want the audience to be a fly on the wall, watching this mayhem happen.”

Nearly two decades after the original production in 1993, the play has had successful runs at the Edinburgh Festival, the West End and Off Broadway. ‘Killer Joe’ has been made into a film by William Friedkin, who earlier turned Letts’ second hit play ‘Bug’ into a movie as well.

This is the latest controversial production at the Dolman Studio Theatre which recently hosted a sell-out production of Irving Welsh’s ‘Trainspotting’.

There is a good reason the play warns about gun shots, profanity, drug use and full-frontal nudity of both the male and female variety.

If you haven’t a strong stomach for such things – and the worst that human beings can do to one another – stay away. But that would be a shame, because in ‘Killer Joe’, director Nathan Hodge has shaped a thrilling piece of theatre.

‘Killer Joe’ is at the Dolman Studio Theatre from 4 – 8 November. Tickets are available on the door.

Brother and sister Chris (Stuart Moss) and Dottie (Abbie Thomas) spend their lives watching TV in their sleazy trailer (Photo: Phil Mansell)