Curtain Comes Down With a Musical Classic
Filed Under Shower Curtain | Posted on July 21, 2008
A doyenne of the local stage bows out with an alfresco production of one of the classics of musical theatre, writes Alan Cookman
COLE Porter’s sparkling musical comedy Kiss Me Kate is hardly a show which tugs at the heart strings.
If there are moist eyes in the stalls, they can usually be blamed on tears of mirth.
Artistic director Julia Stafford Northcote, who lives at Bishton Hall, is retiring and moving to London to be close to the West End theatres.
“We don’t know if Lookout! will continue after she’s gone, but we all want to make her last show at Bishton Hall really special.
“Kiss Me Kate is a wonderful, feelgood show, but the run will be tinged with sadness. We’ve staged some great musicals at Bishton Hall, even the ones where the weather could have been kinder.
“We’re all crossing fingers that for this last production we’re able to get through every performance without having to run for shelter.”
If it’s the end of an era for Lookout!, the company is at least bowing out with a sprightly production of one of the cleverest and best-loved shows in the repertoire. A classic within a classic, Kiss Me Kate observes the sparks fly as a once-married theatrical couple appear in a Broadway-bound musical version of Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew.
Fred Graham and Lilli Vanessa are playing opposite each other as Petruchio and Katharine. Already on poor terms, their backstage bickering and fighting gradually explodes into all-out emotional warfare.
When flowers are delivered to the wrong recipient, and the entire production seems on the brink of collapse, only the presence of a pair of gangsters who arrive to collect a gambling debt from a member of the company, holds the teetering show together.
Tags: athar, curta, curtain, emotion, heart strings, musicals, shakespeare, west endRelated posts
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