Cabaret: Fancy Meeting You (★★★★)

by Izaak Lim, Amalie O’Hara and Kathleen Douglas
Music by Harold Arlen
Directed by Michael Loney
Performed by Anne-Marie Biagioni, Cassandra Charlick and William Groucutt
Downstairs at the Maj
29 - 31 October, 2015

Fancy Meeting You is the third outing for the team of writer Izaak Lim and director Michael Loney in the Downstairs at the Maj cabaret seasons, and, while it’s something of a departure from their previous shows, it’s every bit as successful.

Their formula is as simple as it effective; take a great American songwriter – composer or lyricist – and build a narrative around their songs. You’ve Got That Thing and Exactly Like You were biographical pastiches of Cole Porter and Dorothy Fields respectively, but Fancy Meeting You breaks the mould, using the songs of Harold Arlen to tell a neat story of love faithless and faithful set in a joint something like the Cotton Club.

That story takes in themes of race and homosexual love that give it a contemporary relevance without weighing down the evening’s entertainment.

Cabaret: Guy/Doll

Created by Nick MacLaine, Andrew Williams and Izaak Lim

Directed by Nick MacLaine and Andrew Williams

Musical director Jangoo Chapkana

Performed by David Bowyer, Julia Jenkins, Corinne Cowling and Will O’Mahony, accompanied by Jangoo Chapkana

Downstairs at the Maj

27 – 30 June, 2012

The team of Nick Maclaine, Andrew Williams and Izaak Lim have become something of a local hit factory.

Their production for last year’s Cabaret Soiree series, the Cole Porter memoir You’ve Got That Thing was a rung or two above most of the entertainments staged during these seasons. Its script had substance, the music was elegantly performed and they wisely brought in the experienced and perceptive Michael Loney to direct.

Loney is not back this time, and the script has been reduced to occasional patter between songs. Guy/Doll suffers badly for both absences.

I wanted to like Guy/Doll much more than I did, and I believe its creators are capable of much better things. Choosing songs because there is a reason, rather than merely an excuse, to do them would be a good place to start.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian    

Theatre: You've Got That Thing

Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter

Conceived and written by Nick MacLaine and Izaak Lim

Directed by Michael Loney

Musical director Tim Cunniffe

Performed by Will Groucutt, Analisa Bell and Pilar Mata Dupont

Downstairs at the Maj

10 – 13 August, 2011

A biographical pastiche of the songs and life of Cole Porter sounds easier to do than it is, and it's to the great credit of You’ve Got That Thing’s young writers Izaak Lim and Nick Maclaine that they have neatly side-step the traps in their path to deliver an elegant and surprisingly substantial entertainment.

The first wise decision they made was to keep Porter off stage. We learn about him through three of the people in his life; his wife Linda, his favourite performer Ethel Merman and an apocryphal boyfriend Edward, modelled perhaps on his long-time friend Ray Kelly, to whose children Porter left half his royalties.

It’s a nice touch, and a clever one. By not having to represent Porter himself, Lim and Maclaine are able to speculate and invent without the weight of verisimilitude demanded by baleful old pedants like me; so, for example, the famously convenient relationship between the Porters is drawn out in exchanges between Linda and Edward with a freedom that would have been awkward and artificial if we heard it from the couple themselves.

Their next winning decision was to enlist Michael Loney to shape the show. The lightly framed agility of Porter’s writing, and the comic timing that his music brings to even his more serious subjects, is meat and drink for Loney the actor, and as director he imparts that stagecraft to his cast to the show’s great benefit.

Comedy: Parodies Lost

Conceived and written by Nick MacLaine and Andrew Williams

Musical director Tim Cunniffe

Performed by Joshua Brant, Caitlin Cassidy, Izaak Lim and Andrew Williams

Downstairs at the Maj

29 June – 2 July, 2011

Parodies Lost is the brainchild of the same crew whose sell out season of Tomfoolery was one of the highlights of last year’s Downstairs at the Maj season.

I’m not going to reprise the accolades that show got in this paper, whose reviewer joined in the encore “because laughing for 90 minutes is not a feeling you want to end”, but there’s no denying this fresh-faced ensemble had another packed room eating out of their hands.

Parody is the parrot that perches on the shoulder of satire demanding crackers, and that’s the difference between the pointed originality of a Tom Lehrer and the more superficial amusement of this show.

Link here for the complete review in The West Australian.