Les Miserables — The Staged Concert (VOD)
Verdict: Fortifying brilliance
We’re all going to need fortification in the coming weeks — and not just of the liquid variety.
How happy, then, was I to discover that Cameron Mackintosh was releasing a live concert performance of Les Miserables — recorded in December last year at the Gielgud Theatre — with a full cast, including Alfie Boe, Michael Ball and a show-stealing Matt Lucas.
‘Concert performance’ means it’s a park and bark set-up, with actors stepping up to microphones and holding forth.
Crowd-pleaser: Matt Lucas as the innkeeper Thenardier in Les Miserables
But, as it happens, I didn’t much miss the staged action about our misunderstood hero Jean Valjean on the run in revolutionary France.
I was happy to settle for the excellent cast, performing in costume on a set of barricades occupied by a swaying orchestra.
The show’s blue touchpaper is, of course, lit by I Dreamed A Dream.
I reckon it has the late Herbert Kretzmer’s best lyrics, and Carrie Hope Fletcher does it proud, with her lovely, rich voice like strawberries and cream (though for me, no one will ever top Susan Boyle’s performance on Britain’s Got Talent).
Granite-faced old growler Ball is also in fine form, as villainous Inspector Little Wars is also a show of resistance, of sorts. It’s a Zoom reading of a play imagining a literary dinner in France during World War II, shortly before the French surrendered to Hitler.
And as Boe’s bearded jaw began to quiver, I feared he might be buried under the sheer weight of his towering sincerity. But not a bit of it. He brings the baying audience to its feet, over and over again.
I Dreamed A Dream: Carrie Hope Fletcher does it proud, with her lovely, rich voice like strawberries and cream
And, let’s be honest, a baying audience is now a sight of almost overwhelming nostalgia.
Certainly nobody knows how to work one better than Matt Lucas, as the dodgy innkeeper Thenardier… one half of a double act with his scheming wife, played by Katy Secombe (Harry’s daughter).
Met with cheers as he waddles on, the Great British Bake Off presenter knows exactly where the crowd is — the way an old soak knows exactly where the bar is.
He’s saucily oleaginous as he sings his anthem, Master Of The House, before mutating into a creepy dandy with a soft-scoop wig for the reprise, Beggars At The Feast.
His jutting lower lip put me in mind of the great Peter Vaughan — the prison godfather in Porridge — and I can think of no higher praise.
As Lucas’s Little Britain character might say: ‘I want that one!’ Stay home, stay safe and sing along with Matt.
Little Wars (littlewars.co.uk, until Sunday)
Verdict: Literary cat fight
Rating: 
Little Wars is also a show of resistance, of sorts. It’s a Zoom reading of a play imagining a literary dinner in France during World War II, shortly before the French surrendered to Hitler.
It has a starry cast, including Linda Bassett, Juliet Stevenson, Sophie Thompson and Debbie Chazen.
Bassett plays the grumpy, hard-drinking lesbian writer Gertrude Stein, who’s invited Agatha Christie (Thompson) to a liquid dinner that’s gatecrashed by the American Communist playwright Lillian Hellman (Stevenson).
Little Wars is also a show of resistance, of sorts. It’s a Zoom reading of a play imagining a literary dinner in France during World War II, shortly before the French surrendered to Hitler
Chazen portrays the notoriously acidic lady of letters, Dorothy Parker.
What feels at first like a literary catfight becomes much more interesting, with the revelation that one of the women is working for the Resistance against the Nazis — the ‘little wars’ of the title — and there are some graphic descriptions of sexual violence.
It does eventually lapse into virtuousness, but Steven Carl McCasland writes with the aphoristic wit of a young Truman Capote.
That said, the Zoom format is limited, and there are only a few props, such as a hat that makes Thompson’s Christie look like she’s got a flattened hedgehog on her head.
Crave (cft.org.uk, until Saturday)
Verdict: Dark but brave
Rating: 
Sarah Kane’s 1998 play Crave is more likely to sap your will to live than boost your spirits.
It’s a cry of pain, written for four actors speaking in dissonant voices — like Samuel Beckett without the gags.
Each actor mixes memories of childhood, love and loss with flashes of hope.
Jonathan Slinger has the most distinct voice, as a middle-aged man recalling a past relationship. And as a vision of a mind in free fall, it has a harrowing feeling of dislocation.
But the play is also about the pain of trying to keep going. Tragically Kane couldn’t do that, and I find it impossible not to set the piece in the context of her suicide aged 28.
And with more of us than usual struggling with our mental health at present, I cannot in good conscience recommend it.
Having said that, Tinuke Craig directs an impressive production, setting the actors on conveyor belts symbolic of their isolation.
It may be a dauntingly severe work to thrust upon audiences at this time, but big respect to the folks at Chichester Festival Theatre for continuing to perform behind closed doors and making their work available online.