NICK WAKEHAM casts an eye over some of the latest CD and Book releases.
DAVID CAMPBELL SINGS JOHN BUCCHINO (MP3 Download)
This is a refreshing departure from the otherwise highly orchestrated show tunes albums that have been available in the past couple of years. David Campbell Sings John Bucchino is simply that – Campbell’s rich vocals and Bucchino’s superb piano accompaniment.
Tracks include: ‘Sweet Dreams’, ‘Better Than I’, ‘It Feels Like Home’, ‘If I Ever Say I’m Over You’ and ‘Taking the Wheel’. All tracks are written by Bucchino and come from his long-time career writing for musical theatre and film. The lyrics are truthful and at times haunting but always brought to life by the interpretation given by his longtime friend Campbell.
Most of the tracks are in the style of ballads although there are a couple of more up-tempo jazzy numbers. And, as you can imagine, since they cover a couple of decades of writing, some of the lyrics may cloy just a little in this day and age, but that is a very small gripe on my part. I have to admit to having played the album a couple of times now.
Don’t expect big show-stopping numbers here. The content is gentle but the delivery is captivating and makes it all sound so easy – the sign of true artistry on the part of both performers.
TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES – Cast (Stage Door Records – STAGE 9036)
Stage Door Records has done it again. They have brought to CD one of the great Marmite musicals (you either loved it, or hated it) Tess of the D’Urbervilles, written by Stephen Edwards, based on the Thomas Hardy novel of the same name.
I was ‘lucky’ enough to see this production at the Savoy Theatre in 1999 and all I can say is, thank goodness I am not reviewing the production but only the cast recording. I say ‘cast recording’ but only six of the songs on the CD are by the actual cast – the other 15 are from a studio cast recording of 1998. With the luxury of not having to sit through the actual show, but just listen to it on record, I can see what Stephen Edwards was working towards. The music evokes the spirit of the novel, the grittiness and bleakness is all there. However, it does get a little bit repetitive but one can forgive that in the circumstances.
The casts are both excellent with the London cast including: Philippa Healey, Poppy Tierney, Jonathan Monks and Alasdair Harvey, while the studio ensemble has Cathy Sara, Mark Umbers, Martin Crewes and Deborah Stokes among the voices. The musical adaptation and orchestration is atmospheric and all-in-all this is one for the many true collectors out there.
SWAN ESTHER – Various Artists (Stage Door Records – STAGE 9035)
Another wonderful long-forgotten recording from the vaults, issued by those wonderful people at Stage Door Records. This is theatre producer David Land’s 1983 attempt to replicate the huge success of his earlier Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat production. And, although it doesn’t quite have the same appeal as the Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical, it still packs a punch and withstands the passage of time – even though the songs are nowhere near as well-known as the ones from Joseph.
The CD includes the studio recording which was released before the production went live. This has Stephanie Lawrence as Esther, Clive Carter as the minstrel Mordecai, Denis Quilley as Haman, along with Stephen Hill and the Choir of the King’s House School Richmond. You can immediately see the cloning from Joseph with its school choir! This was released in February of 1983 and the show had a short run at the Young Vic in London that December with Amanda Redman in the title role – unfortunately there is no audio of that performance, which would have been very interesting.
However, when it later went out on tour in 1985 courtesy of Bill Kenwright, now entitled Swan Esther and the King, the roles were taken by Jackie Marks, Chris Corcoran and Warwick Evans and the original score by Nick Munns and J Edward Oliver was augmented with additional songs by Shirlie Roden and John Miller. The additional songs are included on this CD and, even though they are rehearsal demos, they are good quality and a great reminder for those of us who saw it on its national tour all those years ago. There is also an additional bonus track called ‘Here Stands a Man’ from How Green Was My Valley, sung by Stephanie Lawrence.
Another gem from Stage Door Records – long may they continue.
IT’S JUST THE BEGINNING – THE SONGS OF CHARLES MILLER & KEVIN HAMMONDS – Various Artists (Making Records – VIB006)
I must admit I had heard little of Charles Miller and Kevin Hammonds before I received this album for review. Having heard the CD, I am hooked and want to hear more. The album includes tracks from their musicals: Cabin Fever, Fabula, Hope, Brenda Bly: Teen Detective, No One in the World and When Midnight Strikes. The artists include: Pia Douwes, Louise Plowright, Julie Atherton, Caroline O’Connor, Michael McCarthy and Richard Reynard.
It is refreshing to listen to new tracks that actually sound tuneful, are well produced and sung by artists who understand the material. I would think that this songwriting duo is one that will be going from strength to strength and thank goodness this CD has been released so that musical fans can get the chance to experience this new material. One for the ‘must buy’ list!
WORDS SHARED WITH FRIENDS – Various Artists (Auburn Jam Music – Downloads)
Words Shared With Friends is an album of songs all written lyrically by Robert Gould with various collaborators for the music. Sixteen tracks make up this eclectic album, some of them you will recognise from musicals and others are one-offs – but they all have the trademark of Gould’s lyrics behind them. Collaborators include: Ben Messenger, Filip von Uexkull and Christopher J Orton. The album features artists such as Kit Orton, Joe Sterling, Kieran Brown, Rebecca Trehearn, Bill Stott and many others. Tracks include: ‘If I Close My Eyes’, ‘The Rainbow Room’, ‘If We Dare To Love’ and ‘Where Did the Summer Go?’
My favourite track on the album happens to be called ‘Here It Comes Again’ sung by Ben Stott – a wonderful interpretation of the number. But that’s me being really picky as most of the numbers and artists are extremely good. Sometimes you feel that maybe the performer thinks the song is serving them rather than the other way around and, due to the fact that many of the lyrics are sentimental, it can be a fine line between truth and tipping over into the sweet and sickly. That, if I had to be critical of the album, is the only downside to it – too many ballads and sentimentality. However, in the world we live in there is no shame in that and I hope that lots of people go and download this album and that we keep hearing more of Robert Gould and his collaborators.
YOUR LIFE IN THEATRE (A self-help guide for all stages of your career) – Chris Grady (ISBN: 9781910202487)
I have to admit something before writing this review. Normally when one of these ‘self-help’ books on being involved in the theatre lands on my desk, I have the urge to run screaming for the hills. After all, the theatre either comes naturally to you, in which case you will want to progress things by going to drama school, or it doesn’t come naturally to you. In the latter case, it would be as much use buying a self-help book on acting, as it would buying one on brain surgery! However, I did what I was asked and started to read this manuscript and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.
This isn’t one of those stuffy academic books that lose you by page three. It is written with a light hand and has really good advice for the aspiring thespian. And not just on starting out but as your career either soars or sinks. Believe me, it will probably do both a couple of times, life is like that. In my heyday, all you had to worry about was your entry in Spotlight and a good agent. Nowadays you have pitfall after pitfall, not least with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Chris Grady’s book points out, quite rightly, that at the beginning and all through your career you need to be careful of these things. A casting agency isn’t going to be choosing you to play Joan of Arc if your Facebook page has photos of you at some wild party flat on your back clutching a bottle! That’s only the start of the advice – I’m not going to give anything else away, otherwise you might not feel you have to buy the book, which would be a huge shame.
All in all I enjoyed reading Your Life in Theatre. I found it informative, helpful and humorous at times but, most importantly, it is readable. You DO want to pick it up and continue rather than get to chapter three and feel that life has suddenly passed you by, as with some other tomes on the subject.
DRAMATIC CIRCUMSTANCES – William Wesbrooks (Applause Books – ISBN: 978-1-14768-2301-0)
Having studied psychology, theatre and music before launching into his theatrical career, which has spanned over 40 years, William Wesbrooks is now Director of Vocal Performance at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University. He has also written a book entitled Dramatic Circumstances which the blurb on the jacket states will ‘present a thought-provoking process that will enable you as a performer to examine the dramatic circumstances of stories and extract everything you need’ for your performance.
After the first chapter the reader is well aware that Wesbrooks’ roots lie in psychology when he explains the role of child-play and make-believe in his youth. The book then progresses to lay out a method of physical, mental and emotional building blocks which the performer can use to give a truthful performance within the story they are enacting. He believes that the script is simply the ground plan and that the character written by the author is not necessarily the characterisation you should be going for but to get in touch with your inner self, your real-life self in order to give that all-encompassing performance.
I’m not really of that philosophy, as I’ve also never quite understood the whole Stanislavsky process either. The writer knows the person inside-out. It is up to me as an actor to research and find what makes that character tick. I, for instance, don’t think I could find anything in my past personal life that would be appropriate towards portraying Lee Harvey Oswald in Sondheim’s Assassins, but that doesn’t mean to say I couldn’t do an excellent job of portraying the character after much research and a good director. Do I, as an actor, really have to get in touch with my own personal experiences in order to give a great performance? I don’t think so, but there will be many out there who think otherwise and, for them, this book will be pure gold.
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