|
Search this site
powered by FreeFind |
|
|
Barry Kirk reviews Keep on Running at the Queen�s Theatre
For children of the 1960s, there is only one place to be for the next fortnight � The Queen�s Theatre.
Keep on Running, written and directed by Bob Carlton, is a tribute to those days when being a teenager was a new way of life, things were there to be challenged and heroes stood up, and in some cases were shot down.
These were the heady days of my youth � it was freedom in the form of open-toed sandals.
To enjoy this musical play fully, you had to have experienced the scene, and judging by the age range that packed the auditorium on Tuesday, there were a lot of people who knew exactly what Bob was talking about.
Telling the full story of the 1960s in two and a half hours is an impossible task, so Bob has plucked out the high spots and used the mind-blowing music to cover a fairly shallow storyline, and it works beautifully.
To emphasise the point, I usually compliment his magnificent band of actor musicians, Cut To The Chase, for their acting skills, but on this one, it is their musical talents that took me back to festivals and smoke-filled cellars.
Bob�s claimed the play was based on Bizet�s Carmen, but he put it in the utilitarian setting of 1960s Romford, still stiff with post-war austerity, but with the rays of freedom in thought and music, just creeping over the gas works.
If you had been there you knew exactly what to expect, and I for one was not disappointed.
The music of Mods and Rockers flooded back, �Keep on Running�, the music of Procul Harem, The Who etc, all delivered with the same raw energy of the day, followed easily by the late 60s switch-on to flower power and long hair.
Basing the play in Romford made it even funnier as magic names like the Ilford Palais, home of Jimmy Saville, flashed across the imaginative Bakelite and plastic set created by Dinah England.
The inclusion of Ford�s car works, the then major employer, brought in the reality, as freedom, drinking coffee, smoking pot, reciting odd poets, even down to the �Sally Army� clothes shop�s finest two-bob rack, all needed money.
When you consider the elements of the 1960s � sexual freedom, experimenting with drugs, musical revolution and a generation taking hold of their own future, such a story is a minefield of taboo subjects.
Remember in those days we had censorship, and some elements of Bob�s story may not have survived the blue pencil. But they have to be aired, and what we have is a story filled with a lot of humour and poking fun at subjects that a lot of people considered important enough to man the barricades for.
To tell this story, the full artillery of Cut to the Case are brought in. James Earl Adair as a narrator, Philip Reed as the art student and hippie Don, Simon Jessop as Bob, the respectable Ford worker, Maria Lawson as the respectable girlfriend Michelle, Emily Gardner as Rocker Kathleen, Jonathan Markwood as Marty the band leader, Nick Lashbrook as Dancer the drummer, Scott Finlay as the bass guitarist, Wendy Parkin as lead guitar, and Jane Milligan on keyboards.
I am running out of superlatives about this lot. Their acting skills have been well documented but in Keep on Running it was their musical skills for which the night shone. Where else would you find a group of actors blasting out a quality mix of rock and flower power music as a finale?
Interestingly a young friend who plays in a rock band saw the first night and was a bit bemused at a group of people standing on stage playing old songs. The sort he gets requests for at family gigs.
I suppose in some respects, it sums up the generation gap. In my day, we were the rebels, marching on streets, waving placards, sit-ins, staying out after midnight, going to �Quo� concerts, singing weird songs about not being overcome by anything, other than alcohol, that is.
We did some funny things in the 60s, but it was frontier-breaking stuff. Now it�s taken for granted. The fun and excitement of just being there and doing things, has never left me or the generation that experienced it, and that is exactly what Bob and the team have captured in Keep on Running.
The storyline was just a hook, and it was not a history lesson either, but stirred up the treasured memories of days when we were young and at the cutting edge of life � oh yes � that was entertainment baby.
The musical runs until Saturday, June 12 with tickets coring from �8 to �15, available from the box office on 01708 443333.
As for Carmen, well Emily did dance with a rose stuck between her teeth and Philip Reed did leave his girlfriend for her.
Romford Recorder � May 28th 2004
The images, text and design of this website are subject to copyright and no part of the site is to be reproduced without the permission of the webmaster