Brighton Year-Round 2024
Sister Act
Jamie Wilson, Gavin Kalin, Robbie Wilson & Curve
Genre: Adaptation, Comedy, Live Music, Mainstream Theatre, Musical Theatre, Theatre
Venue: Theatre Royal Brighton
Festival: Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
Sometimes talent on a British stage is as awe-inspiring as the musical they’re in is insipid: with or without great productions values. Not in Sister Act. Directed by Bill Buckhurst at Theatre Royal Brighton till March 16th it’s packed out.
Everything sings, even the phenomenal lighting. Certainly Paul Rudnick’s (writing as Joseph Howard) 1992 screenplay, as realised in 2006 by Alan Menken’s Music, Glenn Slater’s Sondheim-esque Lyrics and Cheri and Bill Steinkellner’s witty, economic Book makes Sister Act’s arrival a joy.
In short, a fabulous example of British talent, now endangered, bringing quadruple threat to a magnificent production. Not all such mainstream shows on tour even approach outstanding, but this truly is.
Screenplay Joseph Howard/ Music Alan Menken/Lyrics Glenn Slater/Book Cheri and Bill Steinkellner
Directed by Bill Buckhurst, Choreographer Alistair David, Set and Costume Designer Morgan Large, Lighting Design Tim Mitchell, Sound Designer Tom Marshall, Musical Supervisor Stephen Brooker, Vocal and Incidental Musical Arrangements Michael Kosarian, Orchestration Doug Besterman & Mark Cumberland, Music Associate Jae Alexander, Musical Director Tom Slade
Casting Director Stuart Burt CDG, Hair, wigs and Make-Up Designer Sam Cox, Associate Director Victoria Gimby, Associate Choreographer Michael Ward, Comedy Sequences Consultant Carlie Russell, Fight Director Kev McCurdy, Dialect Coach Louise Jones
Costume Supervisor Jennie Falconer, Louise Nipper & Sarah Banbury for Bristol Costume Services, Props Supervisor Propworks, Production Manager Simon Gooding and Matt Jones, Orchestral Manager Sylvia Addison & Associate Orchestral Manager Richard Morris for Music Solutions
Till March 16th and touring
Review
Sometimes talent on a British stage is as awe-inspiring as the musical they’re in is insipid: with or without great productions values. Not in Sister Act. Directed by Bill Buckhurst at Theatre Royal Brighton till March 16th it’s packed out.
Everything sings, even the phenomenal lighting. Certainly Paul Rudnick’s (writing as Joseph Howard) 1992 screenplay, as realised in 2006 by Alan Menken’s Music, Glenn Slater’s Sondheim-esque Lyrics and Cheri and Bill Steinkellner’s witty, economic Book makes Sister Act’s arrival a joy.
So hoods versus singing nuns? Back in the late 70s the Goodies brought on Pan’s Nuns, parodying The Sound of Music and every other nun-singing film. No-one predicted they’d do it for real.
Landi Oshinowo is a magnificent Deloris van Cartier, with a huge range, gleaming top-notes and cut-through projection: but also a warmth that never occludes her clarity. From ‘Take Me to Heaven’ in her nightclub mode through ‘Its Good to Be a Nun’ and the nailing ‘Sister Act’ there’s variety and pitch too, underscoring Doloris’ conflicted emotions.
On this occasion Kate Powell plays Mother Superior, and she emerges magnificently straight out of Sondheim. Her crystalline diction (English, like Smith, maybe it’s a rule over there) and amused deadpan delivery in ‘I Haven’t Got a Prayer’ is one of the highlights, showing sidelights to a different take on the musical – which riffs styles.
They’re heading a cast of generously-individualised performers. If you don’t know Sister Act, and the film featuring Whoopie Goldberg and Maggie Smith, it’s straightforward.
It’s now 1977 (the film set in 1968). Deloris, seeing her no-good lover Curtis Jackson (Ian Gareth-Jones, excellent baritonal 70s villain) kill informer Clemont (terrified Harvey Ebbage) goes straight to the police and her school admirer policeman ‘steady’ Eddie Souther – Alfie Parker, a revelation. Parker’s bass-baritone is one of the evening’s revelations, and in ‘I Could Be That Guy’ and other moments he’s vocally stunning. He also has the greatest double costume reveal of the show.
Now Curtis wants Doloris dead. Eddie hides her in the convent (Sisters of Perpetual Sorrow) where Deloris finds a decrepit choir with a nunnery about to be closed by Monsignor O’Hara (Philip Arran, later revealed as the perfect DJ for God on a talent show). Much to Mother Superior’s chagrin, Deloris makes them a hit pop-gospel choir turning the nunnery’s fortunes round, making them celebrities. But guess who notices.
In the process and despite herself (she hated her Catholic school) Deloris undergoes something of a journey, bonds with the nuns, particularly Postulant (she mistakes that word!) Mary Robert (Eloise Runnette, an ardent soprano voice, full of promise) and jolly, loud-voice Sister Mary Patrick (Isabel Canning, keeping an adroit tightrope between self-guying an superb coloratura). There’s sharp vignettes- Julie Stark’s ‘aged’ Sister Mary Lazarus on the piano, wandering, Sister Mary Martin (Ceris Hine, preppy and pert), and Sister Mary Theresa (Wendy-Lee Purdy, all goofy kindness). It takes talent and pinpoint musical supervision to sound this bad – then harmonise.
Oshinowo’s joined by Michelle (Esme Laudat) and Tina (Amber Kenendy) as a trio who alter blend as nuns; and the hoods are magnificent. Elliot Gooch’s larky hyena-laughing TJ, Michalis Antoniou’s braggadocio Pablo, and Callum Martin’s Brooklyn wide-boy Joey all get a number, all are first rate.
That goes for the ensemble – Joseph Connor, Sheri Lineham, Corrine Priest, Samuel John-Humphreys, later joined by others like Ebbage.
Nearly everyone gets a chance to gleam in this feel-good bed of rose windows. That’s not just because Morgan Large’s supremely functional set with marble-effect floor and semi-circular receding prosc-arches reveal Tim Mitchell’s remarkable lighting.
They’re wholly integrated as rose-widows patterns with a gallimaufry of different effects throws gules of light everywhere (to say nothing of the glitterball thrown on thee audience in some scenes). It’s one of the finest lighting designs I’ve seen on a mainstream stage, including chilled light greying in through a hopeless dawn, and night-clubs at the start.
Large’s costume designs though trump even his set: to describe them is futile: there’s so many, sometimes shot off in reveals, sometimes changed in seconds. Oshinowo’s alone seem to spin in those last moments, but then everyone else arrives transubstantiated one might almost say. Are sequins taking us to heaven? Alistair David’s choreography is sharp throughout, but reaches an apogee in ‘Sunday Morning Fever’ and the closing numbers.
The orchestra led by Tom Slade lends more than a hint of what we’ll get from the opening – Stephen Brooker’s supervised Michael Kosarian’s arrangements so they fit the put-band with the right punch through Tom Marshall’s sound: which isn’t too loud either.
In short, a fabulous example of British talent, now endangered, bringing quadruple threat to a magnificent production. Not all such mainstream shows on tour even approach outstanding, but this truly is.
