Skip to main content

Review of Kiss Me Kate at Kilworth House Theatre

A theatre shrouded in trees on the estate of a house with landscaped, picnic and woodland areas is a tremendous boost to anyone putting on a show and Kiss Me Kate from director Matthew White lives up to the wonder of its location.
Kiss Me Kate based on a book by Sam and Bella Spewack with music and lyrics by Cole Porter is itself based upon Shakespeare's work The Taming of the Shrew. A theatre company with principal performers divorcees Lilli Vanessi (Caroline Sheen) and Fred Graham (Matthew McKenna) are putting on Shrew interspersed with their quarrelling behind and on stage. Added to the mix is a romantic side piece featuring Lois Lane (Monique Young) and Bill Calhoun (Justin Thomas) and some nefarious characters after some money.

Caroline Sheen
There is just so much to delight in from this production, right from the first viewing of the impressive and very grand set and an amazingly well choreographed initial number of Another Op'nin', Another Show, you just know that this is going to be a fabulous evening. The entire show is maintained at a flowing pace with set changes fluently becoming part of the show and never breaking the pace, and clever staging using all areas of the theatre space, including aisles and side entrances.

Matthew McKenna
The two leads Caroline Sheen and Matthew McKenna are brilliant together in their sparky dialogue. McKenna, in particular, had quite a brilliant way of enunciating his words making it all perfectly very thespian-like and tremendous fun. There were as this was opening night a few slight line fluffs, all in one scene between them, however, nothing deters the fact that these two are going to be tremendous together during this run.

Monique Young
Also once again rather special is Monique Young, having seen her in the Hairspray tour in 2015 and picking her out as the star of the show then, here as Lois Lane she very nearly steals the show once again. Her Lois is light and joyful and she shares with Gremio (Andrew Gordon-Watkins), Hortensio (Davide Fienauri) and Lucentio (Justin Thomas) perhaps the best number of the show, Tom, Dick or Harry. Thomas in this number and his delightful performance of Bianca in the second act also shows his quite incredible gymnastics ability.

Also highly entertaining and bringing great humour to the show were Cory English as Gangster 1 and Carl Sanderson as Gangster 2. Certainly audience favourites and the classic Brush Up Your Shakespeare was very well performed. There is also a great turn from Tarinn Callender as Paul, putting great vocal and dance skills in Too Darn Hot, in this, his professional debut.

Another interesting aspect of this musical for me was that despite being outside, the sound was the best that I have heard from a musical. Sound designer Chris Whybrow and strong 12 piece orchestra led by musical director Michael England fill the theatre with strong and meaty music, however unlike most shows in indoor theatres the balance is just perfect with the vocalists not disappearing behind the music. There are many a theatre that could learn from this venue, team and setup.

So a brilliantly entertaining evening of a really fun musical, full of great characters and bags of familiar tunes. Some incredible singing and a hugely skilled ensemble make this not only a must see if you can make it, but also a great opportunity to visit this brilliant venue.

★★★★


Performance reviewed: Wednesday, May 31st, 2017 at the Kilworth House Theatre,
.
Kiss Me Kate runs at the Kilworth House Theatre until Sunday 16th July 2017.
For further details visit 
http://www.kilworthhousetheatre.co.uk/

Popular posts from this blog

Review of Benidorm Live at Milton Keynes Theatre, Milton Keynes

I arrived at Milton Keynes Theatre to see this touring stage version of ITV comedy hit Benidorm with a distinct lack of knowledge. Having never seen the show, my information stretched as far as knowing it was set in a holiday resort in Spain (the title helps there), and that the humour generally resorted to the cruder end of the spectrum. However, having graced the screens for ten years, it was clear that Derren Litten's show had garnered quite a following, and indeed it was clear from the reception of the audience on the night, that this following was pretty much filling the theatre. The plot, such as it is for this stage show, is very much drafted from an episode of Fawlty Towers , and made a great deal more adult with its humour. The hotel manager, Joyce Temple-Savage (a sharp performance by Sherrie Hewson) gets wind that a hotel inspector is in, and the scene is set for seeking them out and all the obvious cases of mistaken identity. It's thin and doesn't fill

Review of Bert's House at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

Bert's House is a true Northampton homegrown production from On The Shore Productions, this piece has been written, cast, produced and opened on stage for a short tour at the beautiful Royal Theatre at the centre of Northampton, and while here for two nights it found a loving local audience to set it off on its adventures. Bert's House tells the tale of kindly guest house owner Bert and his trials and tribulations within his slightly ramshackle Dunedin Guest House residence in what appears to be an equally ramshackle seaside resort. The house, it seems, is also, a draw for the most quirky of visitors, and equally wacky staff. However, it seems, that a few of both the residents and staff have nefarious reasons for being there. Bert's House is an extremely quirky affair, floating in a surreal world, which both follows its own paths as well as paying endless tributes to British comedy through the years, including many nods to sitcoms of yesteryear. The script, from standup

Review of Planet Circus OMG! 2016 at Billing Aquadrome, Northampton

An unexpected call from a friend who had received a free ticket, Ă  la Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket, to go and see a circus for free, left me sitting in a circus tent a few hours later for the first time in about thirty years. It was a wise, albeit on occasion, scary decision. I have to confess that when seeing shows like this, where there is an element of danger involved I do tend to squirm into the chair I sit. This happened mostly during the opening act of the second half of the show, the suitably titled Wheel Of Death. I rolled into an uncomfortable ball, while the five or six year old behind me gleefully shouted that "they are going to die!". This was a scary welcome to the second act, after the first much more relaxing first half. It works excellently and is credit to producer and director Mark Whitney that the show is perfectly balanced, with the bulk of traditional circus arts in the first half, while the more spectacular and often more modern feeling