Night Music in Chester

[MartinG]

Just been to see this, which I'd been looking forward to as it's rare to see a production of ALNM so close to home, and it's the first full season of this brand new theatre built on the site of an old cinema, so we were curious to check it out.

The band was the same pared-down chamber style combo they had in the Menier production, but that was OK. I said a few times on the old board that I'd rather see a show with a budget orchestra than not at all, though I know not everyone agrees.

The performances weren't universally great, and many of the delicious contradictions within specific characters were lost amid quite broad generalisations, but the Charlotte and the Petra fairly consistently hit the mark and the Henrik belabouring his cello to a frantic climax in Later was a hoot.

The biggest problem, apart from the oddly patchy lighting which frequently left people in the crepuscular gloom (perpetual sunset I know, but...), was the unfathomable decision to update the period to 1973!   In an interview with the costume designer in the programme she pretty much states that she knew little about the show apart from the fact that light and dark are key lyrical themes and the year it was written!! 

I'm not averse to considered and justified experimentation with time in some shows, but with ALNM it's never going to work. There are absolutely no parallels between fin-de-siecle Sweden and the platform-boot stamping-ground of Abba. A line like "A civilized man can tolerate his wife's infidelity, but when it comes to his mistress, a man becomes a tiger!" is ridiculous spoken by a man in a safari suit. Silly people!