James And The Giant Peach
The Chichester Festival Theatre, Tuesday 18 December
2007
Review by
© 23 December 2007
Why is that music in the
British Theatre is in such a state that even living in
Yes, musically the show
started with, Big Apple, which had a surprisingly rock-like sound
to it. Quite a 1960s sort of rock-and-roll, type piece (kind of in the style of
Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey), possibly with a bit of R&B
thrown in for good measure, swirled around with a hefty slug of Leonard
Bernstein (a la West Side Story). With the possible exception
of the Bernstein influence, mostly not the kind of thing one would expect from Jason
Carr’s pen. Nevertheless it is still very good music. When Jason Carr
does something rock and pop orientated you can bet it will be good pop, the
kind that even people who don’t usually like pop in their theatre music will
appreciate. He just doesn’t write rubbish. His music for this piece also fits
in very well with Rose Ryan’s choreography. The company soon establish
that they can dance reasonably well, and this even included Break-dancing.
Surely a first, break dancing to Carr’s music! Still if break dancing can be
done to Tchaikovsky (as it once was in
Presently a guided tour in
Central Park stops by the Peach Stone. Older James and friends come out of
their house. They introduce themselves in song. Here we get a nice tuneful,
piece, to which the Old Green Grasshopper in particular dances gracefully to. Older
James begins to tell the story. At this some of the chorus exit, while others
(from among the tour party) remove capes to become characters early in the
story, by the seaside.
There is of course a live
band, conducted by Jenny Gould, they are positioned in the musicians
gallery above the stage.
The action switches briefly
to Regent Street, where a crocodile of eight actors represent a Rhinoceros
stampeding down the street. This of course is accompanied by highly suitable
music from the band. I never saw Chichester’s legendary musical adaptation of Ioneasco’s
Rhinoceros, Born Again, but given just who composed
the score for that, I can’t help but wonder whether any musical themes have
been incorporated into this segment.
Moving on to the introduction
of the Aunts, their introductory number starts with a very distinctive
Spanish-sounding intro. The kind of
musical theme which I am sure neither Shostakovich or Khachaturin
would have dared write; though Shchedrin would, and Carr now has. But
then one of Jason Carr’s characteristics as a composer, is just how
clearly influenced he is by the great theatre composers (in this particular
instance Bizet), while at the same time mixing it all together in his
own particular tuneful way. The scene’s with the Aunts quickly move musically
into the more characteristically Poulenc-inspired pieces similar in
style to Carr’s incidental music for plays.
The Old Man who enters with
the bag of Marvellous Things has a pleasant soft Yorkshire
accent, as with Grimes and Tom in The Waterbabies, I couldn’t
help wondering why? (Was it anything to do with the composer being a
Yorkshireman?) Marvellous Things as a song finds Carr being as
beautiful and lyrical. How many theatre composers these days actually write
beautiful lyrical melodies like that? Not very many I’ll warrant.
The peach growing is
symbolised by a large peach-shaped balloon/rubber ball type thing which is
inflated to hang from the tree. It is later (at the end of Act 1 carried around
the auditorium by a stage hand). I can’t recall if the Peach Visitors coming to
view the peach had a song, though I rather think they may have done, or at
least music.
James slipping outside in the
evening (while his aunts’ are counting their money) meets the creatures who
become his friends. I think they may have introduced themselves partly in song.
It’s interesting to see how a single tune can vary from verse to verse. Carr is
one of those fine composers like Sondheim and Porter who is adept
at making these clever little interesting variations. Eventually the Old Green
Grasshopper climbs up onto the stalk to bit through it, The characters all sing
about going Away From This Awful Hill, away from old spiker
and Sponge. This is a very tuneful hummable melody. Like Gerhswin
and Porter before him Carr clearly knows the value of a hummable Act 1
finale, what could be a better inducement for an audience to come back for the
second half.
Act 2 opens with the peach rolling away, inside it the
characters are still tumbling around. Here the band play appropriate stormy
music to signify this, it actually reminded me very vaguely of The storm which
opened the second act of The Waterbabies. Presently The Peach
comes to rest floating on water. Seagulls circle around, as the friends clamber
out to view their new surroundings. Presently the peach comes under attack from
a shoal of sharks. I am rather amused by how the music takes on a Bernstein-like
quality, just slightly reminiscent of West Side Story. Is that a
witty musical in-joke? Knowing Carr’s style, it could be. Carr is very much
like Porter and Sondheim, and possibly Gershwin in this
respect. The Shark attack seems to abate somewhat while the friends decide what
to do about it. As they set to work with Miss Spider’s silk to make ropes for
the seagulls to pull the peach clear of the water, they sing, a sort of cross
between a sea-chantey, and Cole Porter. Well it did remind me ever so
slightly of an obscure Cole Porter song (I was only lucky enough to hear
just once), Carborundum (about working in a factory – each of the
characters singing it had their own special place on the assembly line to
sing). This song works in a similar structure with each character singing their
job in turn. The seagulls renter, more of them this time, some on stilts. Their
pulling the peach clear of the sharks is symbolised with a trapeze being
lowered towards it. This is followed by James and the Earthworm sitting alone
up outside the peach complementing each other on saving the situation. They
find they are rather hungry, then James has an idea, why don’t they eat a bit
of the peach. The others join in, and the Centipede (backed by the others)
launches into a ear worm of a song about This Delicious Peach. I
did not much care for the lyrics myself, although I could see that they were
very clever (Carr is as good with witty list lyrics as people like Cole
Porter, and, Dick Vosburgh once were). And these ones very much
fitted the whole theme of a Roald Dahl musical. Like Alan J Lerner before
him, one of Carr’s talents as a lyricist is an ability to craft his lyrics very
carefully to his subject matter, that they fit like a glove. For example in Six
Pictures Of Lee Miller the lyrics sung by the character of Pablo
Picasso really did sound as if they were Picasso’s own. Here Carr makes
sure his lyrics take on Roald Dahl’s voice.
Back to the plot, a Captain,
and his Number One and Number Two enter just inside one of the auditorium
gangways (over to Stage Left). The Captain spots the peach, flying, as is
afraid it might be an enemy object. He wants to “send a message to The
Queen” (that made me laugh a lot – because I couldn’t help but think of Spitting
Image – well the first time I came to this theatre was to see that TV
show’s Leading puppeteer in a musical here). Anyway Number One and Number Two,
not seeing the peach think the Captain is drunk, and take him off to the ship’s
doctor, before he can try and shoot it down. Over on the peach there is a drama
as the overconfident centipede manages to fall off into the water, but James
gets Miss Spider to spin him a life-line, reaches over and hauls him back to
safety. This doesn’t do much to dent the centipede’s arrogance. After this
little adventure the peach flies much higher up into the clouds, where partly
thanks to the arrogant centipede being so noisy, the Cloud People pelt them
with hailstones. I think there was a song at this point. Well certainly there
was music. Pleasant and tuneful, exactly what one would expect with Carr. At
last, passing the Cloud People, whom they observe painting a rainbow, they come
insight of land, America. As one of them exclaims “We’ve crossed the
All in all quite a short
slight musical, unlike Carr’s earlier show in this very auditorium The
Waterbabies which was whole family entertainment (one did not feel it
was particularly substance depth to it), James And The Giant Peach is
much more ostensibly a children’s musical. It is with this show that Carr
proves he can write for children just as well as Stiles And Drewe (the
latter day successors to Disney’s fabled Sherman Brothers) can.
Although if you know where to look, one can find decent musical theatre
composers day, Carr is one of the best, because he has such an incredible
range. His score for James And The Giant Peach certainly brings out
sides to his compositions that I had no idea existed, such as an ability, when
required to come up with a good rock-style piece. Yet he is also one of the few
people nowadays who is a real tunesmith, writing catchy humable melodies, which
if this were 1970s New York you’d have the newsboys on every street corner
whistling. Nowadays I doubt you’d find newspaper sellers or anyone whistling
songs from music theatre in the street, yet if they were to do so, Carr’s tunes
would be perfect. Because Carr just doesn’t write rubbish. The only
reason some critics dismiss his tunes as unmemorable, is simply because
(thanks to both Lloyd-Webber and co’s habit of releasing their cast
albums before their show’s take to the stage, and the prevalence for
pop-group back-catalogue shows) theatregoers today have forgotten how to really
listen to genuinely new music that they have never heard before. Yet I had part
of the tune for the song about ‘this delicious peach’ stuck in my
head for days afterwards. Like Irving Berlin before him Jason Carr
can write musical theatre songs to fit almost any style and subject required;
with considerably superior musical skill to Berlin. (Berlin always needed
someone to do his arrangements to say the least, whereas Carr of course is not
only very good at arranging his own work, he also frequently earns his living
arranging other peoples). Overall although I felt that James And The
Giant Peach demonstrated additions to Carr’s range as a composer that I
didn’t know where there, as a score it was not quite in the same league as Six
Pictures Of Lee Miller. But then Lee Miller was such a perfect
score that even a genius such as Carr would be hard put to match that
particular score. It is quite understandable that with any great music theatre
composer some shows will be better than others, and the show that follows a
real triumph is nearly always going to be a difficult one (Irving Berlin,
Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, Julian
Slade and the Gershwins all had difficulties with shows that
followed a tour de force). However, just like those guys, Jason Carr is
such a terrific composer, that even his less good scores are still excellent,
and so much better than many of his lesser contemporaries best work.
Yet
it isn’t just musicals, as a composer he has such a wide-ranging scope as a
theatre composer. For those of us who are tired of hearing dull, modern pop
trash, Carr’s music is just a brilliant. A real breath of fresh air. I’d like
to hear him given some proper opportunities in the West End: as a musical
Theatre composer of course – but that can be difficult economical, although his
work might suit the fringe better. Then there’s his incidental music for plays,
the late Steven Pimlott employed him on a number of occasions, most
recently Rose Tattoo, one hopes that other directors of plays
take note. But as a composer Jason Carr is something special, given the
chance he has the potential to up there with the best. I think companies like The
Royal Opera House should be taking a serious look at his work. Just think
what he could achieve given the proper opportunity.
Take
for example ballet composers. In the mid twentieth century there were many fine
modern composers writing for the ballet, in Britain it was people like Arthur
Bliss, and Constant Lambert (the
latter was also a notable arranger), in Germany it was Hans Werner
Henze, while in Russia there were such greats as Aram Khachaturin, Rodion
Shchedrin, and, Dmitri Shostakovich. Nowadays if a ballet has new
music it tends to be by such horrors as Andy Cowton, Thom Willems,
and Tricky Pumpkin. The quality of Bliss, Henze, Khachaturin, Shchedrin,
Shostakovich, and possibly Lambert is all to absent. When companies like The
Royal produce new ballets they fall back on existing music by classical
composers such as Chopin, Janacheck, Mahler, Poulenc,
and, Prokofiev. And yet if British Music Theatre composers such as Noel
Coward and Arthur Sullivan, not to mention Malcolm Arnold and
Richard Rodney Bennett could write decent ballet music then one wonders,
given the chance, could Jason Carr?
Anyway, even if you are not into Roald Dahl, it is worth going to see James And The Giant Peach just to hear a decent well written tuneful score. The young actors playing the Friends (Alex Jordan, Cleo Pearson, Will McGovern, Bathsheba Piepe, and, Alfie Jones) all connect well with the music. Indeed, I think that Bathsheba Piepe and Alex Jordan in particular really do have potential as musical theatre performers. Let’s hope that their future career’s may include some more of Jason Carr’s delightful tunes.
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Off Site Links:
The Chichester Festival Theatre’s Official Website: http://www.cft.org.uk/
Composer Jason Carr’s Official Website: http://www.jasoncarr.org.uk/
To read my review of another Jason Carr musical at Chichester, The Water Babies, please click here.
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