'London Road' at the National

There's nowt so melodic as folk

'London Road' at the Cottesloe is that terribly rare thing - a truly original piece of entertainment. It chronicles the events that took place in Ipswich during 2006 when five women were murdered but does so by presenting the verbatim discourse of the surrounding community. The genius lies in realising that the vocal tics, pauses, and repetitive nature of normal speech can be transformed into song in the process creating something unique and surprisingly moving.

The skill of the cast - all playing multiple real people - to shape themselves and their voices without slipping into simple impersonation or caricature is astonishing. Kate Fleetwood seems to have a different physical form, stature and gait when she is playing Julie as to when she appears as any other person. Her performance is a standout in a company that doesn't have one weak link, portraying a women caught up in events not of her making but quietly determined to do something about it.

Those individuals taking advantage of the situation or behaving less than charitably are not whitewashed from the record. Even the most sympathetic characters are allowed moments where we might feel a little uncomfortable with their point of view. But presenting humanity in all it's light and shade is what this does so well.

Direction, lighting and design are all imaginative and add to the richness of the play - the hanging basket finale is strangely powerful - but really the evening belongs to the dialogue and the music. Adam Cork and Alecky Blythe have collaborated on something miraculous bringing clarity and focus to real speech in a way that celebrates it's idiosyncrasies and highlights it's inherent harmony.

An odd, passionate and compelling evening of theatre.

Bill Count: 5

'Godspell' at the Union Theatre

A blast from the spiritual, hippy, flowers and peace religious past.

There is much to admire and a lot to enjoy in 'Godspell', Stephen Schwartz's 1971 adaptation of the Gospel of Matthew (and a little bit of Luke). It takes the simple tales contained in the New Testament, shakes them free of a lot of the politics of the last couple of thousand years and presents them cheerfully and humorously. Even if it screams love, peace and flares as it does so.

As parables these tales are, as you'd expect, timeless and wise - little stories to try and help you live a better life with others. This production distances itself even further from the religious nature of the source material by hedging it's bets in the opening sequence. A Hawkins type electronic voice charts the beginnings of the Universe implying the connection between science and the metaphoric nature of a lot of what follows.

The songs carry a lot more of the Christian religious symbolism and spiritual dimension of the source material. This isn't all that surprising given that some of the lyrics are taken from traditional hymns. They are also much harder to shift from the late sixties and so where you'll most often be reminded of 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and, indeed, 'Hair'. But roof raisers like 'Day By Day' and 'Prepare Ye...' don't need improvement - though the lyricist could have tried a bit harder to give us more than one chorus.

Oddly, the least satisfying part of the story is the crucifixion. This is the only sequence which relies on the audience having a knowledge of the Greatest Story Ever Told and so doesn't arise from what we are seeing in front of us. Act 2 as a whole doesn't quite manage to lead us through the events with a strong enough narrative and so becomes a sequence of tableaux instead.

The entire cast perform brilliantly. And the jokes are very, very funny. It's not often you see 'Into the Woods', 'A Chorus Line', 'Les Mis' and 'Victoria Wood As Seen On TV' mixed with Bible stories but, judging by the laugh out loud results here, maybe you should.

Bill Count: 0

'Rocket to the Moon' at the National

Stirling performances, dodgy accents, a stunning set and gorgeous millinery.

Clifford Odets wrote 'Rocket to the Moon' in 1938 and it has a heightened, almost cliched style of dialogue. The characters seem to comprise of a check list of stereotypes but this limitation is knowing as if the writer, the characters and the audience are all in on the joke. And the jokes are good. While the play loses pace on some occasions, mostly when the women aren't on stage, it does produce solid laughs throughout. It's the drama that sometimes falters especially when it comes to the periphery of men who share the floor of the office building.

Acting honours go to Jessica Raine who manages to make the astonishingly simple Cleo - so simple, in fact, you can't believe it isn't an act - likeable rather than slappable. Joseph Millson as Ben has a great collection of dumb, empty smiles and Nicholas Woodeson is relishing the brutal honesty of Mr. Prince. Poor Keeley Hawes seems to draw the short straw with the hard Mrs. Stark. She only has a couple of occasions where she can make the role sympathetic but does get the best hats. Even if some of the accents wobble a bit all the performances are first rate.

The Lyttleton impresses once again with the quality of the stagecraft on display. Nobody could fault the care and detail in Anthony Ward's set and Mark Henderson's lighting. The overpowering heat of a June 1930's New York office is stunningly realised. The characters nervous tic like trips to the water cooler completely justified in such an oppressive setting.

With it's oven-like backdrop, sexual tension and heightened language there is something of the Tennessee Williams about the play although this one only reaches a simmer rather than a rolling boil.

Bill Count: 4

'Haunting Julia' at the Riverside Studios

A solid final scream doesn't make this slight play haunt the memory.

To call Alan Ayckbourn prolific is to undersell what is an astonishing breadth of work. With over seventy plays competing for attention it's small wonder that one or two of them are less than memorable and, unfortunately, 'Haunting Julia' definitely fails to scare like a good ghost story should.

Set some years after a young and very gifted musician has taken her own life, the play sets about exploring the various ways something can be haunted. Individuals are haunted by their grief, guilt or gifts. The building where the tragedy took place is both seemingly haunted by the spirit itself and also by the fact that it's been turned into a museum. Even the words of Julia haunt the play by being repeated on a loop over the exhibit.

All of this could be quite chilling but the setting never seems quite cold enough, the characters don't appear sufficiently panicked until too late and the sequence of long explanations of each relationship with the titular Julia saps a lot of the tension from the occasional scares.

Dominic Hecht is a suitably disbelieving rationalist as Andy as shocked by the existence of the museum as the ghost that inhabits it. And Christopher Timothy is a bluff and plain-speaking Joe but probably over plays some of the panic just a little. Richard O'Callaghan seemed a little weak as Ken, a little too fay.

However all this good work can't cover the fact that the ending, while well done, just doesn't seem worth the build up - more a mild draft than a proper gust from the depths of hell. It might have been worth sticking with a one act structure since the interval reduced some of the impact that a straight run through would have achieved.

All in all, not a complete misfire but definitely not enough to keep you awake at night.

Bill Count: 2

'They Came to a City' at the Southwark Playhouse

Who would have though that optimism could seem so dated?

Written in 1943, J.B. Priestley's play skirts a very fine line between a play and a polemic about the kind of society that could be created from the upheaval that large areas of the world were experiencing.

The play expresses a passionate hope that things can be made better if we don't commit ourselves to simply rebuilding what was there before. The kind of hope that led to massive societal changes in Britain even in the face of terrible austerity. And it's the kind of hope which now seems elementary and childish because that society didn't come about. That, in effect, we failed.

Straightforwardly written and clearly structured, the play in places comes across as a trifle simplistic but then a passing comment from one of the characters will jolt you with Priestley's prescience. When you're laughing at a joke at the expense of business and banking which sounds as though it could have been written for a panel show last week you have to give the author credit.

All the performances were carefully judged to give just the right amount of cliched forties character actor that the dialogue demands and then let the superb writing do the hard work. Particular congratulations to James Robinson and Charlotte Donachie who produced credible protagonists out of the roles which run the greatest risk of sounding naive.

Also worthy of note was the beautiful lighting in the Playhouse's cavernous Vault, making the always out of sight city seem welcoming in that tunnel is quite a task.

Very much of it's time but timely, 'They Came To a City' was surprising, amusing and - through no fault of it's own - slightly depressing.

Bill Count: 1

'Betty Blue Eyes' at the Novello Theatre

Set in the post World War Two austerity Britain preparing for a Royal Wedding - no obvious parallel left undrawn - 'Betty Blue Eyes' is an adaptation of the Alan Bennet scripted film 'A Private Function'. It revolves around a chiropodist and his socially climbing wife, a pig called Betty, a group of local dignitaries, a banquet plus the meat inspector who wants to bring them all to book.

The song writing team of George Stiles and Anthony Drewe have marshalled a collection of instantly catchy melodies with a fantastic line in witty and arch lyrics for this comedy. Which includes possibly the best song about foot complaints ever likely to be written although, admittedly, it's probably not up against that much competition.

The hit rate for the songs is astonishingly high. Whether it's in a fantastic belter - 'Nobody' - for Sarah Lancashire, the dizzying mini-farce 'Pig, No Pig', the frankly too hummable for it's own good 'Betty Blue Eyes' or the brilliantly orchestrated extended dance scene 'Lionheart', this is a very strong score. Each song is distinct, adds to character, moves the plot along but never forgets to be melodic and, perhaps most importantly, fun.

And this cast bring out the very best in the material. Sarah Lancashire is fabulous as the socially ambitious Joyce, all straight back and simmering resentment, perfectly partnered with Reece Shearsmith as a delightfully downtrodden - by both wife and society - Gilbert. They have the lightness of touch of experienced comic actors but also make you believe enough in the relationship to make the final walk into the sunset a genuinely heart warming moment.

Set design, direction and choreography all add to the mood, bringing an air of heightened reality to the whole thing. And the animatronic pig is surprisingly awww inducing.

However, with all of these strengths it's a shame there has to be a weakness and it's the book. Scenes which should bounce along never quite come to life; the Northern cadences should have a musicality of they're own but they never quite reach it. When this show sings, it soars but the dialogue is resolutely earth bound. Which, given there's a song every five minutes or so, does make the evening rather uneven.

Overall, Cameron Mackintosh has backed a very strong show for his first foray into the unforgiving world of the original musical for about a decade. This is defiantly old school musical comedy but there's nothing wrong with that.

Bill Count: 4

'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg' at the Gielgud Theatre

Kneehigh, the theatre company responsible for this adaptation of the 60s French film by Jacques Demy, had enormous success a couple of years back with 'Brief Encounter'. That was an altogether wilder reworking of seminal British cinema with the explosive moments of theatrical daring clearly counterpointing the safe, staid atmosphere of the original film.

In many ways 'Cherbourg' is less successful because it doesn't have the room to play with audience expectations and the material quite as much. Which isn't to say it's a failure by any means just not quite a success.

The sung play covers Guy and Geneviève's love affair as they have to deal with the interference of Geneviève's mother and the inconvenience of the Algerian war. At the conclusion of the six years, our hero and heroine aren't quite where you expect them to be but the story still manages to be romantic and humane.

All the performers do a wonderful job of keeping the recitative bouncing along which, while odd at the start of the evening, seems strangely natural and emotional at the end. Joanna Riding has a studied sixties elegance about her even when being wheeled around which is not something everybody could manage.

Less successful is the choreography of the actors around the stage. The constantly mobile state of the cast and set seemed to draw away from the quieter, more personal moments of the show. And it wasn't quite smooth and effortless enough to not draw you out of the action.

It is probably instructive that the most successful parts of the production are the additions. Presenting the town as a scale model at the start, transitions written on just about any prop you can think of, a balloon tango sequence and the joyous silliness of the shop door bell.

Maîtresse as performed by the cabaret artist Meow Meow, is a scintillating presence guiding us through the melodrama with sympathy but also a hint of darkness. And the final lovers reunion which leads into an astonishing coup de thèâtre or, rather, a sequence of them reminds us what this company is capable of when in complete control of their art.

Bill Count: 0