Over the years, I have often been saddened when a production I have seen of something truly wonderful has closed prematurely or hasn't found a life outside of a limited run. The theatre is littered with shows that have fallen by the wayside. Some were just not very good but others fell because the timing wasn't right or backing could not be found to continue their stage development. This week I made a trip to London to witness a phoenix rising (quite literally actually) from the ashes.
As a young student based in Birmingham, I went to see Shirlie Roden's rock opera Jeanne - about the life of Joan Of Arc - about seven times. Producer Bill Kenwright used the Rep Theatre to stage the first production with a cracking cast of musical theatre and pop voices. The pedigree of the show was high. Award winning director Robin Phillips helmed the production. The reaction was very positive to the show, many of us at the time were convinced we had seen the new Jesus Christ Superstar. Roden's score was full of rich melody, dark stirring passages and anthemic refrains. The story of Jeanne D'Arc and her voices from God is a gift to any author and Shirlie makes sure that her journey is conjured up musically for us with a collection of highly hummable tunes, a gift of melody to rival the Lloyd Webber's and Schonberg's. The cast too were an intoxicating mix. The titular role was played beautifully by Siobhan McCarthy (who went on to be the original Donna in Mamma Mia!), whilst international pop singer Malcolm Roberts sang his heart out as Jeanne's one true ally, Alencon. The incredible mercurial presence and extraordinary voice of Peter Straker almost stole the show terrifying us all as Jeanne's court room prosecutor Cauchon. Even all these years later the production stands up as one of my favourite evenings of musical theatre. A warm memory of a show so engaging that it found a special place in my heart since that time.
With a definite buzz about the production, Kenwright took the show into London some three months later at the beginning of 1986. I made tenative plans to see it during its run. However, fate intervened. I never got to see the re-staging of the show. It had been booked into the primarily dance focused Sadler's Wells Theatre in North London. The first rock opera ever to be performed at the venue. Bill Kenwright himself re-directed the piece (unfathomably jettisoning a rather witty Act 1 song in the process) and brought in Rebecca Storm to helm the show when Siobhan moved up to create the role of Svetlana in Chess. It was here the London critics sharpened their knives. Their lofty influence having been watered down when they took major critical swipes at Les Miserables, Starlight Express and others from the stables of Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackinstosh to no avail. They then seemingly took out their frustration on more vulnerable targets. Jeanne was one of a number of musicals from this time that took the full vitriol of the newspaper clique. Reading some of it, even now its hard to imagine they were watching the same show that I had in Birmingham. As a consequence of their catty remarks (and some just clearly didn't like rock music being performed in the confines of a cultural hub like Sadler's Wells) Jeanne closed prematurely. But for those that witnessed it, and indeed many who were in it, the feeling was that an injustice had been done. This show didn't deserve the fate it had been handed. It was better than that.
I always imagined that one day someone would recognise that the score was rather better than its reputation as an 'underperforming' piece of London theatre (conveniently forgetting it had been something of hit in Birmingham). In 2015 Stage Door Records released a CD of the demo recordings commssioned by Bill Kenwright during the show's original development. This was further proof that the melodies and lyrics of Shirlie Roden were stirring and emotionally resonant in the telling of Jeanne D'Arc's story.
Jeanne CD available from Stage Door Records
So cut to August 2022 and I am sat in the intimate Battersea Turbine Theatre where workshop performances are being held in order to determine if Jeanne can find a place in the current theatrical marketplace. The rumble of trains overhead are only a momentary distraction during the performance. Its amazing how the concentration adjusts itself to block such periphery out. Shirlie Roden has re-worked some of the material to improve the dramatic structure of the show, and the re-writes sit comfortably with the majority of the original material that had thrilled me and so many others all those years ago. With just two keyboard players (musical director and arranger Derek Barnes and the dexterity on the keys of his 2IC, Joe Baldwin) a cast of twelve took to the Turbine stage dressed all in black to give us a concert version of highlights of the score. Director Ajjaz Awad-Ibrahim making sure that we not only got the music, but a light touch with movement and character all added to the overall essence of the piece and defining the historical figures before us. For me it was thrilling to hear a new younger cast go through its paces with the score. Elzbieta Kalicka made a fine, innocent Jeanne driven by her voices to the battlefield and ultimately her doom. Her sweet, clear voice giving all the more credence to Jeanne's visions. Will De Renzy Martin proved a handsome lead, with his baritone voice especially effective on 'Silver Lining'. Olivia Maffatt earned some big laughs as the Dauphin's mother-in-law with her saucy number 'Has Our Flower Been Deflowered?' and Barry O'Reilly's impotent and duplicitous Dauphin proved a casting coup as the tide turns against Jeanne and his tantrum outburst 'Burn Her Bridges' opened the second section with a bang. And there lurking on the periphery and eventually centre stage is the lone survivor of the 1980s company, Peter Straker has lost none of his terrifying presence as Pierre Cauchon, his charisma and his voice untarnished. And not forgetting the choral material as the performers unite to produce a heavenly sound, a sound of defiance, anger and judgement. All held together by David Shaw Parker's majestic narration throughout the evening.
The brilliant 2022 workshop cast of Jeanne
The company apparently only had four days rehearsal of some complex music before presenting it before a paying audience. It seems Jeanne D'Arc performed another miracle in getting these players to such a high standard in such a short period of time.
Shirlie Roden has created something special in Jeanne The Musical, and hearing it again in a live setting nearly four decades later only proves to me that my original instincts were not wrong. From the burning ashes of a show lost in past decades, perhaps now Jeanne is set to rise up and take her place as one of the great characters of musical theatre. At least that is what my voices have told me.
Rob Cope
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