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Mirage Markers present Noёl at Noёl
Written and performed by John Michael Swinbank Musical Director and accompanist Tim Cunniffe
New End Theatre
16 December – 25 January 2009
A review by Rosie Fiore for EXTRA! EXTRA!
Noёl Coward’s controversial play, The Vortex, premiered at the Everyman Theatre in Hampstead on 16 December 1924. Some 84 years later, and a few hundred yards down the road, Coward returns to Hampstead, albeit in a very different guise. John Michael Swinbank appears onstage, debonair in his dinner suit, and sings his opening number in a crisp, witty approximation of Coward’s own delivery. But when he stops singing and starts speaking, we discover he is an Aussie… and not even one of those sophisticated Sydney-dwellers, he’s a farm boy from a tiny town North of Perth on the Aussie West Coast. So how does someone, theoretically more at home with dingoes and didgeridoos, come to develop a lifelong passion for Coward? Our questions are answered, as Swinbank weaves his early life story amongst his renditions of Coward’s most famous numbers. He blames his older brother, who gave him a Coward songbook as a Christmas present when he was a teenager. It’s a fascinating tale, and you can almost imagine the movie: the sensitive teenager in the isolated bush town, the witty, quintessentially British songs that inspired him, and of course the hidden characters: his siblings and his Yorkshire mother and father, who seem to have loved and accepted him, even when he flounced down to the breakfast table in a silk dressing gown. It is such a lovely story, and I found myself wishing desperately that Swinbank seemed more comfortable in telling it. Although he had written the material, he seemed uncertain and was often a little hesitant, so that we missed some of his best punch-lines. Maybe this is the first time he has made his show as personal as this, but, certainly in the first half, it made me feel a little uncomfortable. Once we were into the second half, he really hit his stride. With less autobiography and more singing, the show lifted and the audience was really drawn in. Most of the Coward standards and favourites were there (although I did miss ‘Someday I’ll Find You’). Swinbank’s excellent accompanist, Tim Cunniffe, led a fantastic segment where he played Coward songs in different styles for the audience to identify. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard an ABBA-style rendition of ‘Mad About the Boy’. Swinbank jollied the audience along and handed out toy koalas as prizes, and it was here that you could see his polish and professionalism, developed in two decades on the cabaret circuit in the Far East. Swinbank and Cunniffe offer a light and frothy evening, and if you’re not looking for anything too profound or challenging, it’s a perfect theatrical meringue for the Christmas season. Venue-wise they might have found it easier to be in a supper theatre venue, rather than the New End with its steep rake, but your Aunt Ethel will love to reminisce and sing along, and you may go home with a little koala key-ring if you know your Coward.
7:30pm Tickets £19 concessions £17 New End Theatre Ticket sales: 0870 033 2722
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ay Couzen