Central School of Speech & Drama MA Acting Musical Theatre Student Showcase

Published Friday 30 April 2004 at 09:20 by Joanna Hickman

The postgraduate students of Central School of Speech & Drama’s one-year MA Acting Musical Theatre course will have learnt a lot, I am sure, from their studies. But their graduating showcase show might have taught them the biggest lesson of all - that there’s sometimes a huge gap between aspiration and inspiration and it’s difficult (if not impossible) to put your best foot forward when the show itself is wrong-footing you at every turn.

Billed as a showcase, the structure of this show signally failed to show anyone off to their best advantage. Even more cruel, in the pressured circumstances, the messy structure of the show - which cut and arranged songs into incomprehensible medleys that might have kept the pace up but meant it was impossible to appreciate anyone in their own right - meant that the audience sat on their hands throughout. Some appreciative applause breaks might have raised the audience’s temperature and that of the expectant performers, too.

As it is, one sensed above all how valiant everyone was in the face of adversity. There was a lot of emphasis throughout on ensemble performance. Whether this was a deliberate policy to bury the weaker students I do not know but certainly the entire 32-strong company proved that they are bonded as a group.

It was, however, far more difficult to single anyone out, which was surely the purpose of the showcase in the first place. It is great that everyone is treated equally but in this business, some are inevitably going to prove more equal than others. But how could anyone shine when there was scant opportunity to do so in the ceaseless onward march of this show?

Because the boys number less than a third of the total number of graduating students - there are just nine against 23 women - they are able to make a stronger collective impression. Among them, Aaron Romano makes the biggest impression of all, not just because he is physically bigger than his peers and is shamelessly uncovered, so to speak, in a finale number, Touched by the Hand of Cool from Taboo but also because he has a more memorable presence, too. Other standouts include Luke Tudball with an all-too-brief moment from City of Angels in Look Out for Yourself, Dominic Hinchcliffe, who renders Van Morrison’s Moondance appealingly, and Matt Woodgate, who takes Larger than Life from My Favourite Year with aplomb.

Of the women, it is even harder to distinguish between them, since the show conspires to make them a generic mass, from the all-black costume they each wear to the all-too-brief songs they are given to perform, often in groups rather than solo. Four, for instance, are given snatches from Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s I’m a Woman to perform and, instead of standing out individually, they all merge into one.

There are, however, a few notable solo spots for Joanna Hickman, grabbingMiss Marmelstein from I Can Get it for you Wholesale and making it her own, Leo Heaton with a fiery There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This from Sweet Charity, Eun Ju Kwak with a yearning I’d Give My Life for You from Miss Saigon and Rohini Drury, appealing in Gotta Lot of Living to Do. Triumphing in another kind of adversity that transcended the weaknesses of the show, Lizzi Malley - with her arm in a sling - was also a trouper, even proceeding with the choreography.

If Central failed to showcase its performers adequately onstage, no such criticism applies on the page, with a very handsome brochure published of all the students featured that gave them a full page each and publicity material for the event even including a card that had thumb-nail pictures of each of them. Next time, I hope that the show is as good as the printed material but then maybe it is another valuable lesson for them - quite often once they join the profession they will find that the quality of the publicity outstrips that of the show they are appearing in.

Mark Shenton

EXPERT CHOICE

JOHNNY WORTHY (director/choreographer)

Matt Woodgate

Joanna Hickman

BILL ROSENFIELD (Broadway cast album producer)

Lizzy Malley