Snog me Sue! (Kiss Me Kate)

Member Name: Critchyboy

Product:	Kiss Me Kate
Date:	20/08/02 (343 review reads)
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I spent the day in London on Thursday with my Best Man on Day One of my ‘Stag Adventure’ Weekend. He knows I have a deep rooted love of the theatre and decided to treat me to two shows. One of which I shall review at a later date.

I spent the whole day trying to guess which show he had booked me into in the evening. I’d got the Matinee sorted as my little investigative mind scoured the internet for information pertaining to Thursday matinees and resulted in guessing correctly. There was only one show to hold a Thursday matinee but I was pleased with my talent for finding out the facts...!

He spent the whole day convinced he’d booked the wrong show. When pressed I gave suggestions as to what it could be: Les Mis – for nostalgia as we’d seen it at the Palace a while back; Bombay Dreams – something new and different. But guess as I might I just couldn’t get it.

When we arrived at Victoria Tube Station and alighted I branded him a liar as the only theatre, or so I thought, around there was the Apollo Victoria home to Bombay Dreams. I had totally forgotten about the little Victoria Palace Theatre, the delightful home to this pleasing little show. A revival of Kiss Me Kate…

***THE SHOW***

Kiss Me Kate is one of these clever ‘show within a show’ shows as it follows the attempts of a band of actors to get through a performance of Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew.’

Based on a book written by Sam and Bella Spewack, the music and lyrics are by Cole Porter and the show is directed by Michael Blackmore.

The show opens with the arrival of the troupe anticipating the opening of their new show and trying to get through rehearsals. The star draw of the show is the fading light of Lilli Vanessi, an actress who has trodden the boards and done Hollywood, before coming back to her roots in theatre.

Fred Graham is the producer
/writer/director/male lead of the show (within the show!). He and Miss Vanessi had once been married but have since split up before being re-united for this production. Their relationship is tense at first until they recall their glory days of acting. They both, however, have new ‘relationships’. Miss Vanessi has a mystery man, while Fred has fallen for an actress called Lois Lane who is also in the production.

Lois, on the other hand, is playing with Fred in an attempt to get the roles and her heart lies with Bill Calhoun another actor in the production.

Before the show Miss Vanessi receives a bouquet of flowers from Fred. The flowers were the same as her bridal bouquet at their wedding. She swoons at this and starts to dream of life again with Fred. Fortunately, for Fred, she did not read the attached note as he had intended them for Lois. After a failed attempt to retrieve the card, which ends up in the cleavage of Miss Vanessi so it can be close to her heart, the production of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ begins…

For those of you who know your Shakespeare, ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ is a moral tale of the difficulties and complexities of male-female relationships. Lois takes the role of Bianca – the sister all the guys are out to marry. Miss Vanessi takes the role of Katharine – the sister all the guys want to stay away from. Fred plays the role of Petruchio – the would be tamer of the shrew, Katharine.

Thrown also into the mix, Bill has run up large gambling debts in Fred’s name and two local mobsters come along to make sure the show runs as planned and they get their money.

All goes well through the production, up until the point the Miss Vanessi reads the note from the floral bouquet and all hell literally break loose…

Will Miss Vanessi kill Fred? Can anyone perform at gunpoint? Will the show finish with all actors in tact? Will Fred and M
iss Vanessi ever get back together?!? Who gets who..?!?!

***THE MUSIC***

The music is wonderful. I didn’t think I’d know anything about them, but for you music addicts, here my countdown of my faves…

Another Op’nin’, Another Show.
The first song. Great lyrics, great dancing. Great to start with one I know from Am Dram days!

‘Tom, Dick or Harry’.
Sung, as many are within the ‘production’ of ‘Taming of the Shrew’, by Bianca (Lois), and her many suitors. Very amusing song about three men trying to win Bianca’s affections.

‘I Hate Men.’.
Sung by Katherine (Miss Vanessi). Excellent song which reveals an awful lot of truth as to why Katherine has never married.

‘Kiss Me Kate’.
Sung by The Company at the end of Act One. Miss Vanessi has read the floral bouquet note and is determined to undermine the rest of the production and get her own back at Fred. Great visual comedy and amusing to see Fred trying to hold the show together with little asides. Very funny.

‘Always True to You (In my Fashion).
Sung by Lois explaining why she can fall for other men but why she’ll always love Bill.

***THE SET***

The set is marvellous. The backstage set of the theatre showing ‘Taming of the Shrew’ especially so. Four levels of doors fills the stage from top to bottom with steps, ladders and walkways enabling the actors to get to them. A bit of a nightmare if you’re at the very top of the theatre as some of the action must be missed, especially that taking place on the highest level.

The other sets are also impressive from the star dressing rooms to the actual setting for the ‘Taming’ production.

***THE CAST***

An excellent set of Broadway actors take the four lead roles:

Fred Graham/Petruchio is played by Brent Barrett.
Many roles on Broadway and a number of awards to his name he was excellent. If you saw the concert verion of ‘Oklahoma’ on the BBC recently he was playing the role of Curly.

Lilli Vanessi/Katherine is played by Rachel York. She has played this role on the recent American Tour and makes her West End debut reprising the role in London. She has performed in many other shows also such as Les Miserables. She was superb when I saw her and her performance of ‘I Hate Men’ was hilarious – she was chewing up the set and spitting it back out again!

Bill Calhoun/Lucentio played by Michael Berresse. Nominated many times for his performance of this role on Broadway he is making his West End debut in this show. Amongst other things he had a role in A.I. that ‘little’ film. Great actor again and a marvellous gymnast as he made it from the bottom of the backstage set to the top without using the steps! Very entertaining!

Lois Lane/Bianca is played by Nancy Anderson yet another one making her West End debut having played the role during the US tour. She has a brilliant character to play in this show and really seems to relish every moment of it! You could be assured that no scene fell flat when Lois was there!

***THE CONCLUSION***

Despite my reservations about the show, I tried to be really excited for my friend’s sake, I thoroughly enjoyed the show. It was so nice to see an excellent and entertaining show without a really serious message a la Les Miserables, Phantom, Miss Saigon, Blood Brothers etc… Funny, in some places side-splittingly so, especially where Miss Vanessi finds out the flowers weren’t for her and her attempts to ruin the show. Great songs and music courtesy of the legendary Cole Porter. A totally entertaining show without resorting to the farcicalilties (just made that word up!) of pantomime. (If you missed last Christmas’s pantomimes, don’t worry the
re’s the world’s most expensive panto in the West End starring a rather classy car.)

Kiss Me Kate, the saviour of Broadway following the September 11th attacks, is no saviour of the West End. It closes on August 24th following the end of the American’s contracts. Sadly, because it is a great, light-hearted show. A UK tour will take place shortly, with an all British cast. Make sure you catch it if it comes your way. Or take a chance and grab it while it’s still in London.

***THE DETAILS***

Running at the Victoria Palace Theatre until Saturday 24th August 2002.
Box Office: 020 7834 1317.
Tickets available from www.ticketmaster.co.uk
Tickets also available from the TKTS booth in Leicester Square at half-price.
Tickets: £7.50 - £40.00.
www.kissmekate.co.uk
Nearest Tube: Victoria.

Thanks to you all for reading. C. :o)

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