Rebecca Bainbridge, Sinead Long and Christina Tedders in Oranges and Elephants at Hoxton Hall, London. Picture: Sharron Wallace
Oranges and Elephants continues at Hoxton Hall, London until 10 February.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
The World Premiere of Lil Warren’s Oranges and Elephants which boasts that over 30 women are directly involved in the production, is the impressive launch of Hoxton Hall’s all-female spring season (Female Parts).
This actor-musician, music hall-style play with music gives a fascinating insight to female gang warfare in the Victorian era.
The Oranges led by ‘hard nut’ Flo (Kate Adams) are from Bethnal Green and are involved in an on-going conflict with The Elephants from Walworth Road, whose fearsome leader is Irish Annie (Liz Kitchen).
They are tough, heartless criminals who do what they need to do to survive the poverty and depravation surrounding them and they look after their own by whatever means necessary – even if it means murder.
Mary (Sinead Long) is a young, innocent scullery maid who has run away from her over-attentive boss to find fame and fortune in London. She immediately finds herself in the midst of a fracas between the Oranges and Elephants.
Elephant Nellie (Christina Tedders) is immediately attracted to Mary but so is rival gang member Ada (Rebecca Bainbridge) who snatches the girl to give to Flo as a gift.
Ada is a loose cannon, a female Bill Sykes, who gets great satisfaction from inflicting pain. She wants Mary for her own plaything, but has to pacify her gang leader. How will Mary survive and can she and Nellie break away and make a new life together?
At the start of the show The Chair (Susannah van den Berg) welcomes the audience in true music hall style, introducing Doreen on piano (Jo Collins, who also wrote the music) and leading the first of four sing-a-longs.
The Chair tells the story, introducing each scene with over-the top bravado, which is probably the weakest element of the show. This is no fault of van den Berg, she is excellent and a talented multi-instrumentalist, but it does detract from the grittiness of the story. In Act II there is far less interruption and the production is stronger for it.
The entire cast works incredibly hard and all the performers are impressive musicians, so it seems unfair to pick out a few, but Tedders has an amazing voice and is very watchable.
Bainbridge, as Ada, is outstanding, her swagger and menace are as perfect as her vocals, and Kate Marlais is excellent as Maggie.
The final number is outstandingly strong and well choreographed but sadly it is followed by an unnecessary final sing-a-long, which detracts from the drama.
Warren has created an interesting piece of theatre that deserves to develop further. Her work couldn’t have been in safer hands than those of the wonderful Susie McKenna whose directing skills have brought Oranges and Elephants to life.
Set and costume designs are by Sara Perks, lighting by Johanna Town, movement director is Abigail Rosser and sound is by Yvonne Gilbert.
Hoxton Hall is not the easiest venue to get to but it is worth the effort to support this production. It is a lovely historical building with a great vibe.
The only downside are the seats and the management should look at extending space either side of each chair by at least an inch because unless you are stick thin, you get very close and intimate with the people either side of you. They may lose a couple of seats in capacity but the audience would be far more comfortable.
Helena Howard
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