Side By Side By Stephen Sondheim makes its return to London for its 50th anniversary this December at Upstairs at the Gatehouse. Read more about the revival here:
https://discover.ticketmaster.co.uk/theatre/side-by-side-by-sondheim-revival-to-come-to-london-this-winter-80904/
Are you going to get tickets? What's your favourite piece of work by Sondheim?
I really enjoyed affluenza and thought the acting was brilliant
What does everyone think of the full 9-Herod lineup for Jesus Christ Superstar at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane? Are you tempted to see the show more than once?
I think this review needs a preface, to give some context on my relationship with the show and why I feel the way I do about this production. I am not a huge Martin Guerre fan - I’ve seen one version of it ever live, plus a couple of bootlegs, and I preferred those versions to this one.
I fully appreciate that many people here are going to absolutely rave about this - first-night adrenaline, an underdog show loved by “theatre people” - and those views are completely valid. I fully expect to be in the minority with what I’m about to say. I also appreciate that many of you know the show far better than I do, so please correct any mistakes in my memory or understanding.
I’ll also add that I was in row D (second back row) of the dress circle, and it did feel quite distant because of the layout. My eyesight isn’t the best either, so please correct anything I might have missed.
I’m not going to dwell on first night hiccups - late light and sound cues, actors not standing in their light, late microphone pickups - all that’s normal and will get ironed out. There was plenty, but I’ve seen way worse. It wasn’t an issue for me. They have still to work outwhich numbers need applause - which was quite subdued, to be honest - except for “I’m Martin Guerre” and “Here Comes the Morning”.
I am also putting down the very strange opening as a technical issue, so not judging that harshly - if it’s intentional then that’s a different matter.
The show went up at exactly 7:30 on my watch, great. Except it didn’t really. There was a very strange and awkward pre-show, where ensemble members did… something with ribbons, at what I’m assuming was Arnaud’s grave/pyre. Unfortunately, I think (I hope) something went wrong with this, because it went on for 7 minutes or so, and the audience murmuring was well underway. They would leave, re-enter, repeat the sequence - several times. I think they were stalling and I was expecting an immediate show stop - if that’s what is intended every night, I’ll eat my hat.
I thought tonight summed up pretty comprehensively why Martin Guerre has never been a big success - it simply isn’t accessible to audiences like Les Mis or Miss Saigon are. From the narrative to the music, it is a musical whose central story ultimately gives the audience very little to root for. This is a capital P Problem for me, because the more critically and commercially successful B&S musicals have a central sympathetic character for the audience to invest in. Kim, Valjean. I think it is meant to be Bertrande in this show, but we see, hear and know so little about her, that everything which follows feels incredibly rushed and any relationship formed with the audience is playing catch up from the get-go.
I know the music has its (huge!) fans, but this version takes repetitive to a new level. We hear the main “I’m Martin Guerre” theme, I would guess, in at least five, and probably several more variations - instrumental, different key, altered melody, but it just keeps coming back. It reminded me of Aspects of Love and the irritation when the next character sang the “Love Changes Everything” melody. There IS some lovely music in the show, but an awful lot of really nice stuff has been completely excised. Now I know this was also the case in prior productions, but because so many of the original melodies and recurring motifs have been completely cut, it means you’re hearing the same tune repeated more often over a much shorter time.
I thought the plot - and thus the evening - was simultaneously very long, yet also incredibly rushed. The opening 20 minutes were brutal. Things picked up a lot in the final scenes, the court scene was very well done and I liked the actor’s voice playing the judge. I say voice, because due to Matthew Warchus’s directional choices in the round, he barely sang or spoke a line in our direction, so I’m judging his acting based on the back of his head.
And this was an issue throughout. The blocking is not fine-tuned for an in-the-round audience. There is no revolve, and often characters take up a position and essentially stay there for the entire song. In their big love duet, depending on which side you were on, you got to look at either Arnaud OR Bertrande’s face for the duration of the song. I really like Warchus as a director, so I really don’t understand so many of the choices made in the staging.
Now people will say this was sold as a semi-staged production - and it is - but top price for this is £72. The cast are in costume. There is some light choreography, there are some benches and a table which serve as a bed, a pyre, some benches, and a table, and a few other carry ons. So the storytelling really needs to be top-notch, and I’m afraid it’s not.
Parts of it, despite knowing the story fairly well, were outright confusing, especially in the first half of the show. Warchus has experience stripping epics down to their core story beats; he worked with Shaun McKenna to adapt three huge novels/9+ hours of movies into one 3 hour show with The Lord of the Rings, for example. But I do remember similar criticisms being made at the time that the plot itself was very hard to follow for newcomers. Obviously, I pooh-poohed these - because I was a fan of the material and took for granted what was happening. Martin Guerre doesn’t have that luck with a wider audience, and I will not be at all surprised if the professional critics pick up on this.
I can see what this production is trying to do: strip Martin Guerre back to something raw, intimate and almost folk-theatrical. And in places it absolutely works. The problem is that in stripping away so much context, characterisation and musical material, it has also stripped away much of what makes the story dramatically compelling.
It is worth outright saying that the entire Protestant/Catholic concept has been scrapped. While the story is still deeply seated in religious hypocrisy as a theme, the town itself simply follows “Christianity”. This has the knock-on effect of the “witch hunt”, and the townsfolk’s constant flip-flopping on what they think/feel/believe coming out of absolutely nowhere - often from one musical line to another. I’m pretty sure their views in previous productions were swayed by religious fervour and Bertrande’s conversion. Now it just makes no sense except to cause conflict, for the benefit of the narrative.
What did the facepaint represent, by the way?
The band sounded fine - good even, at times. It worked in the context of this production and wasn’t an issue. Did I hear a lute?! It’s just a nice, condensed chamber musical sound. In fact, the band, costumes, staging, in the round configuration and accents reminded me a lot of seeing things at places like the Bolton Octagon. The problem is, with no disrespect to the Octagon, where I saw MANY cracking shows and plays, this is the Old Vic.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a production having that aesthetic. In the right venue, at the right price, I might even find it rather charming. But the Old Vic is selling this as a major London production, and that inevitably raises the bar.
Arnaud (Alex James-Hatton) and Bertrande (Liv Andrusier) both have terrific voices, and I thought James-Hatton in particular sings beautifully. Their duet was easily my musical highlight. Elsewhere, it’s always nice to see Adam Pearce. I liked Aaron Lee Lambert’s voice and presence a lot as the judge. I was far less keen on Barney Wilkinson as Guillaume, who had all the menace of a school prefect.
Which was again, a big problem narratively. There is no antagonist, in this version - not really. Guillaume, in his manner, presence and massively reduced time on stage, reads more like a bratty incel. Maybe this was intentional, but he has gone from a man capable of rabble-rousing a population to commit genocide, to a young lad who looks like he’d struggle to organise a particularly unruly school trip.
I also wasn’t too impressed with some inconsistency with the accents; it felt like many were just doing “Generic Northern”, and throughout the cast we took a tour of everywhere from Cumbria, Yorkshire and Lancashire.
The stakes are so low, but the pace of the first two-thirds so simultaneously glacial yet emotionally wafer-thin. There is very little sense of danger, even when the story is telling us there should be. Characters are threatened, condemned, betrayed and ultimately killed, but because the production has done so little to make us invest in them, the events often feel like things that are happening rather than things that matter.
And I think that ultimately sums up my problem with this production. There are some very good performances, some lovely singing and some genuinely beautiful music, but I never felt particularly emotionally connected to any of it. I can see why Martin Guerre fans will love what this is trying to do, but for me the stripping back has gone too far. I wanted it to win me over; it just never gave me enough reason to care.
I’ve given this 2* I’m afraid. Left me completely cold.
Free ticket for the Old Vic musical Martin Guerre if you make it in the next 10 minutes