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New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Nicholas de Jongh's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Jonathan Kent.
Cast: Ruthie Henshall, Julian Ovenden, Alexander Hanson, Annalene Beechey, Matt Cross, Don Gallagher, Simon Thomas
Description: A romantic musical set in 1940s occupied Paris, with Ruthie Henshall in the title role. Featuring music by Michel Legrand and lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, translated from the original French novel by Alain Boubill.
Trains: Tube: Piccadilly Circus 
Phone: 0870400 0626
Website: www.trh.co.uk/contactus.php
Email: boxoffice@trh.co.uk
Grand dame: Ruthie Henshall as Marguerite, the mistress of a Nazi general and a French pianist, played by Julian Ovenden, at the Haymarket
Curtain call: Ovenden, Henshall and Alexander Hanson, who plays the Nazi general
What rash, theatrical daring to transform that romantic courtesan, Marguerite, La Dame Aux Camellias, into a Nazi general’s two-timing mistress who comes to a violent rather than tragic end in Second World War Paris. This audacious act of modernisation, which reminds us that plenty of well-heeled French collaborated with the Nazis, forces Marguerite into a crisis of awareness, since her new lover’s sister lives with a Jew who has to escape the city. Yet Ruthie Henshall’s emotionally frigid Marguerite never discovers much of a nagging conscience. La Dame, the poignant consumptive lover no longer engages sympathy as a Nazi moll who mixes in anti-Semitic high society.
Jonathan Kent’s engaging production is reinforced by Paul Brown’s atmospheric evocation of grand Paris rooms, with silver-framed, mirrored windows and burnished gold panelling. The songs, whether the sophisticated Jazz Time or the more typical What’s Left Of Love, tend to come at you with endless, yearning strings, melancholic keyboard musings on passion and rare Sondheimian flashes.
The creators of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, composers of the music for those historic shows, have this time concentrated upon writing the book, together with Kent himself. They have left musical matters to Michel Legrand and his score lacks the Boublil/Schonberg sub-operatic flair.
How pleasurable, I thought at first, to discover a musical with anti-romantic slanting, that deals with serious questions of collaboration and anti-Semitism. Yet Marguerite manages to make war, Nazis and collusion serve too much as a desultory, dramatic backdrop to the musical’s romancing —until the shocking, murderous finale. Instead of coughing out her ruined lungs and dying in a haze of beautiful sadness as the original Dame Aux Camellias did, this courtesan for unexplained reasons has decided to throw in her lot with Alexander Hanson’s cold but smitten Nazi general.
Henshall’s 20th century Marguerite sings in a powerful but not very distinct voice. She lacks voluptuousness, remaining more than a bit prim and forever luke-warm. She falls in lust, or could it be love, at her 40th birthday party, after sighting Julian Oven-den’s far younger Armand, a roving pianist. He is there to help provide the party entertainment, ends up entertaining her in his arms, while other guests hide in the basement for fear of bombs exploding over Paris. Ovenden, an adept piano player in real life, plays and sings the narcissistic homme fatale to the eloquent manner born.
The love affair, to which Ovenden’s angry young pianist commits himself with ardour, is threatened when the general employs spies and Armand’s sister, Annalene Beechey’s Annette, in love with Simon Thomas’s Jewish Lucien, becomes a Nazi torture victim.This catastrophe, precipitated in the second act, does not, though, lead to the crisis to which it feels as if the musical is being drawn. Instead Marguerite ends up a victim — the French collaborators renouncing their Nazi pasts. The musical, both its book and music, did not greatly captivate me, but I was impressed by the way it raises serious moral questions.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
A very fair review by Nicholas de Jongh but I would add that it's a musical for grown-ups, with a serious theme and does not pander to popularity. Perhaps because it lacks the soaring melodies of the authors' previous works it comes across as a thoughtful and low-key production faultlessly performed by a splendid cast but just failing to be an inspiring piece of musical theatre. Marguerite is still worth a visit, though.
- John Drew, Shipton-under-Wychwood
