{"id":3407,"date":"2017-02-20T07:34:42","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T07:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larkreviews.co.uk\/?p=3407"},"modified":"2017-02-21T07:32:43","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T07:32:43","slug":"east-drink-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=3407","title":{"rendered":"Eat, Drink, Love!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opera House, Wetherspoon, Tunbridge Wells, Sunday 19 February 2017<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The annual Sunday on which Tunbridge Wells\u2019s glorious Opera House reverts to its musical roots and sets aside its current pub incarnation is always a\u00a0 festive event. All credit to Wetherspoon for facilitating it. This year Merry Opera Company\u2019s new show is revue rather than opera. And an engaging melange of musical theatre, songs from various genres and – of course – \u00a0opera it turns out to be.<\/p>\n

An accomplished and versatile quartet \u2013 Andrea Tweedale, Gemma Morsley, Lawrence Olsworth-Peter and Matthew Quirk \u2013 shift between genres so adeptly that it feels as if we\u2019re moved from classical (Mozart\u2019s Un\u2019aura amorosa<\/i> nicely sung by tenor Olsworth-Peter, to Horrible Histories<\/i> at a stroke. A rousing rendering of The Roast Beef of Old England<\/i> complete with mezzo-soprano Morsley, sporting a colander-crown\u00a0 on her head as Elizabeth I, ends the first half. In between the extremes are numbers such as a pleasing account of Purcell\u2019s If Music Be the Food of Love<\/i> from soprano Tweedale, and bass-baritone Matthew Quirk, having fun with Ted Waite\u2019s I\u2019ve Never Seen a Straight Banana.<\/i><\/p>\n

Several things strike me about this show. First, it\u2019s interesting to hear musical theatre numbers sung without radio mics by trained opera singers. I have long contended that there is no valid distinction between musical theatre and opera. It is all simply musical drama and any differences are often very blurred. Merry Opera\u2019s take on the material in this show cheerfully reinforces that.<\/p>\n

Second, it\u2019s splendid to hear such a variety. Some of it is familiar. I have sung the surprisingly difficult The Banquet Fugue<\/i> from John Rutter\u2019s The Reluctant Dragon<\/i> myself and it\u2019s a pleasure to hear it done with such slickness and panache. What a stylistic contrast though with Harry Champion\u2019s music hall number Oh! That Gorgonzola Cheese<\/i> or Quirk and Morsley being\u00a0 wittily outrageous in the well known Have Some Madeira M\u2019Dear<\/i> \u00a0by Flanders and Swann, or Quirk and Olsworth-Peter in a dead-pan take on I Gave My Love a Cherry<\/i>. The four of them do as well with American-style 1930s close harmony as with Baroque and Bizet\u2019s Omelette Quartet<\/i> with which the show ends is entertaining.<\/p>\n

Third, the choreography (by Carole Todd) provides quite a lot of clever grouping and movement so that the show works reasonably well visually as well as aurally.<\/p>\n

There is a problem, though with the linking narrative with which John Ramster, director has tried far too hard. The show is themed on three inter-related human activities and some of the dialogue and flirting amongst characters between sung numbers is excruciatingly contrived and hammy, The show would be better with much less of that and an additional sung item in each half.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the show takes a while to get going and some of the singing is wobbly in the first fifteen minutes \u2013 or at least it was at the performance I saw. The second half is both better structured and more assured.<\/p>\n

Generally speaking though, Eat, Drink, Love!<\/i> was a very pleasant way of spending a Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Susan Elkin<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opera House, Wetherspoon, Tunbridge Wells, Sunday 19 February 2017 The annual Sunday on which Tunbridge Wells\u2019s glorious Opera House reverts to its musical roots and sets aside its current pub incarnation is always a\u00a0 festive event. All credit to Wetherspoon … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3407"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3407"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3413,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3407\/revisions\/3413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}