Performance Preparation Academy – Chess

Chess by Performance Preparation Academy at the Electric Theatre, Guildford.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Sometimes, but not often, a young singer displays such an awesome talent that it takes the breath away of even the hardest-to-please critic and, in Michael Vien, Guildford’s Performance Preparation Academy may well have unearthed a special one.

Vien, 22, knocked it out of the park as the defecting Russian grandmaster Anatoly in PPA’s revival of Chess and in bringing Act I to a thumping crescendo with the show-stopping ‘Anthem’ he makes you want to bottle that rich, warm voice and take it home.

Revisiting the show to check that I wasn’t seeing him through rose-coloured spectacles, this actor’s sublime ‘You And I’ love duet with Hungarian mistress Florence clinched the deal.

In a feast of top-of-the-range voices, Libby-Maya Archer, as Florence, Megan Swaisland, as Anatoly’s estranged wife Svetlana, and Nate Shaw, as the sulky American chess champion Freddie, shone almost as brightly.

In order to give as many as possible the opportunity of doing a name part, PPA fielded two casts, each doing three performances, with the four main female roles alternating.

So when returning to Chess three days later seeking similar gems, the name of Georgiana Reilly (Svetlana) added itself to the list after her beautifully modulated version of ‘Someone Else’s Story’ matched Swaisland’s. Reilly had full control over her top register and her less-is-more approach was bang on the money.

This has to be one of PPA’s strongest streams in an exciting lucky-13th year. They are moving to a much bigger home, also in Guildford, in April. Meanwhile, the Electric Theatre in the town centre gave them experience of performing on a big stage.

While it is hard to knock a show that ran for three years in the West End and houses at least four great songs which have stood the test of time – ‘I Know Him So Well’, ‘Anthem’, ‘Nobody’s Side’ and ‘One Night in Bangkok’ – Chess is a flawed creation.

Apart from the put-upon Svetlana, there’s nobody the audience can really root for, no dialogue to build up chemistry in relationships and no humour until we get an hour into it with the hilarious ‘Embassy Lament’ sketch.

After a stylised and almost operatic start in festive Merano with some pretty groupings and tight dance routines, wonderfully choreographed by Philip Joel, the first half-hour occasionally became overloud, egged on by the driving beat of the rock score whipped up by the two-man band of Kevin Oliver Jones, multi-tasking as MD amid playing a variety of instruments, and drummer Harry Younger.

Then ‘Nobody’s Side’, hauntingly interpreted by Archer, came along, followed by Shaw’s moving ‘Pity the Child’ and we were back in business. Having top-class material to sing always helps.

Archer again showed her vocal chops, this time with ‘Heaven Help My Heart’, and the eloquent beauty of Vien’s ‘Anthem’ brought Act I to a thrilling climax.

As the story moved to Thailand for the second chess match, Shaw, by now a TV chess commentator after quitting the game as a player, and members of the ensemble gave ‘One Night in Bangkok’ the full-steam treatment.

‘Anthem’ was a welcome reprise in a ripsnorter of a finale from Archer’s Florence, assisted by Daniel Nyari, first-rate as the sponsoring TV company’s seedy delegate Walter, who wants his pound of flesh and is not averse to a spot of blackmail to get it.

In the ‘other’ cast, Georgina Steggles acts Florence well and is at her best using her middle range on ‘Heaven Help My Heart’.

It’s a complicated show to get right but the graduating PPA students under the urgings of guest director and Union Theatre founder Sasha Regan just about nail it in this improbable Cold War tale of Russian-American rivalry on chess board and matters of the heart.

There are good reasons why this unique collaboration between the male half of Abba, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, and lyricist Tim Rice (who also wrote the book for the UK but not for the much-changed Broadway flop) did not see the light of day again in the West End for 30 years until a five-week revival at the Coliseum two years ago.

As The Guardian critic of the time wrote: “A musical is only as good as its book and here one is confronted by an inchoate mess.” The story simply does not involve as it should.

Much of its original success stemmed from the concept album which familiarised theatregoers with the songs in advance and produced a No. 1 hit, the ‘I Know Him So Well’ duet by Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson. Amazingly, Paige and Dickson recorded their bits separately and never actually met until later.

With Dickson unavailable to do the show, Siobhan McCarthy played the first Svetlana. Good as she was, she won’t have sung ‘Someone Else’s Story’ any more feelingly than Swaisland and Reilly.

Zoe Forder as Anatoly’s chief second and Antonia Taylor as The Arbiter showed off a fine pair of lungs, Nick Moulson made the most of limited chances as the TV interviewer, while Lewis Pittam, Harvey Hoile and James Elliott showed terrific timing and dance skills as the civil servants in ‘Embassy Lament’.

The striking Kirsty Gadd played the Arbiter boldly in the alternative cast, showing plenty of stage presence, and Caitlyn Cornes took on Molotova, Anatoly’s businesslike assistant.

Much admired were the two fluorescently-lit platforms-on-wheels that slotted together cleverly for the chess showdowns. Top marks to PPA co-founder Louise Pieri for the set design and, of course, her usual flair with costumes. An A for effort all round.

Jeremy Chapman