Mona Golabek talks about The Pianist of Willesden Lane, the moving memoir of her mother – concert pianist and Kindertransport child - that she brings to the stage for its UK premiere this January

Adapted by Hershey Felder from the book The Pianist of Willesden Lane, by Los Angelean pianist Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen, this is the true story of Mona’s mother, Lisa Jura, a young Jewish pianist whose dreams about her Vienna concert debut are shattered by the Nazis in the 1938 Anschluss like the glass of Kristallnacht, as her family bravely places her on the Kindertransport to London. Golabek plays live on a concert grand in this moving one-woman show, the London run of which coincides with Holocaust Memorial Day on Wednesday 27 January. Judi Herman talks to Golabek about The Pianist of Willesden Lane to coincide with its UK premiere.

What made you decide to make the book into a one-woman play?

"My path crossed with Hershey Felder, quite a genius in his particular genre and he took me under his wing, believed in the story and adapted the book for the stage.  He helped me to find an inner voice, to inhabit the story and the characters and become my mother in a way – I do become her, imagining her in that story and taking the audience on that journey."

It’s extraordinary to play your own mother, particularly in this circumstance with this very emotional story – is that quite hard for you?

"It’s a very powerful statement to make and people ask me how I’m able to do this night after night. My answer is, this is a privilege and I think it’s become my destiny in a way. When I was a little girl my mother taught me piano and she always told me each piece of music tells a story and in those lessons she told me she told me the story of how she got out on that train and grew up in Willesden Green as a Jewish refugee and how the kindness of that community and the British people was the reason that I, as a little child, was alive.  They saved my life, these people! So I’m coming back to London to say thank you. I’m bringing the story home."

Was the Willesden Lane hostel Jewish, as the matron was a Mrs Cohen, and were all the children Jewish?

"Yes all the children in the hostel were Jewish.  There were all sorts of kids, 30 of them from different parts of Europe."

So is the play a dramatisation of the book?

"It’s an adaptation. The book follows many of the characters who landed up in Willesden Lane.  My mother of course was the primary character.  The play at 90 minutes is a condensation, with strong elements of music."

To me the idea of the music, which your mother handed on to you, sounds so powerful. You are also a very accomplished pianist, which you’ve inherited from her. How did you choose the pieces that you use in the show?

"The music was very much integral to what my mother learned along the way.  So for example the Grieg Piano concerto in A Minor that is so important in this show, this story, was the piece she dreamed of making her debut with when she was a little girl on the way to her piano lessons."

The Steinway that you’re playing in the show is spectacular – is it a special family Steinway?

"All Steinways are special to perform on, though it’s not a special instrument from that time period. It’s a great honour for me to be a Steinway artist. This is a kind of love letter to the piano and to Steinway. Because my mother was a poor refugee girl, she dreamed of playing, making her debut, on a Steinway. She went to hear Dame Myra Hess playing on a Steinway and, that was an extraordinary moment for her. She talked to me about going to hear (Dame) Myra Hess in the war years all the time.  She went to hear Clifford Curzon at the Wigmore Hall and Sir John Barbirolli."

As well the stage show, you have developed a documentary film from your book, is that right?

"Yes, that’s right. We have been shooting I am a Pianist all round America in many different cities where I bring this story to young students. They read the book and create projects around it and experience the show and we’ve been filming that and getting student and teacher reactions, bringing them the story of a Jewish teenager of 70 years ago, which we have found very relevant to young people today."

It’s wonderfully evocative for us here to have a story called The Pianist of Willesden Lane, for London Jews anyway. Willesden is a part of North West London many Jews know – it has been a rather Jewish area.  But of course that name would mean rather less to people round the world, particularly in America. As you say you are indeed bringing the story home.

"You’re absolutely right. I’ve been criss-crossing America bringing a story most people didn’t know about, the story of the Kindertransport. Holocaust education is not mandatory across America, only in certain States, New York, California, New Jersey, Illinois, for example.  So for a broad spectrum of American students in the 21st century, this was their first studying of the time period of this particular storyline. But the most important thing that I always say is that it’s a universal story. It’s being played out now again as we see the terrible movement of refugees and we’re being challenged now today, just as the British people were so extraordinary to take these children in, to give them homes and shelter."

From our point of view here in the UK it couldn’t be more timely, as your run takes in 27 January, Holocaust Memorial Day. As we lose the generation that lived through the Holocaust, the survivors themselves, you, as the second generation, sharing what’s been handed on to you is so vital. Are you an only child?

"I had the most wonderful sister in the world, Rene, but we lost her at an early age. I raised her children and they are all taking on this legacy and feel very deeply about it. One of them actually made a film in Poland about my father’s side of the family. It’s called Finding Lea Tickotsky and it’s been shown herein the USA on CBS."

Let’s go back to the play and the relationships you show in it. You never met your grandmother and yet you must feel you know her.

"Yes, I know her through my mother, and my grandmother figures in the show."

So you play her too, and your mother’s sisters, your aunts… Tell me about your father.

"That would be giving too much about the show. My mother was torn between two men…"

So there’s a lot more to it than just the story of the music. You narrate the story and play the men too?

"I do jump into some characters. The hardest thing for me is my accent. My mother had the most beautiful accent – British tinged with Viennese. I always said she was a cross between English tea and Viennese Sachertorte! I hope the British people will forgive me for my British accent – and my German accent. I hope they will understand that I’m just a daughter and a concert pianist coming back to say thank you for everything. That’s really what this is about."

By Judi Herman

The Pianist of Willesden Lane runs Wednesday 20 January – Saturday 27 February, 7.30pm & 2.30pm. £22.50-£40. St James Theatre, 12 Palace St, SW1E 5JA; 0844 264 2140. www.stjamestheatre.co.uk

To find out more about all the projects in which Mona Golabek and her family are involved, including the documentary films, I am a Pianist and Finding Lea Tickotsky, and the book The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond the Kindertransport – A Memoir of Music, Love and Survival by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen, visit holdontoyourmusic.org.

Is NotMoses the Exodus story, but not as we know it? Judi Herman speaks to its writer Gary Sinyor about a tale that's not so set in stone

Manchester-born filmmaker Gary Sinyor makes his theatre debut with NotMoses, an irreverent retelling of the Exodus story – starting with the baby the Princess leaves floating on the Nile when she spots Moses, a nicer baby. NotMoses grows up a slave in Prince Moses’ shadow, until God orders both of them to lead the Israelites out of bondage – though it takes feisty Miriam to actually lead the Exodus. Think Life of Brian meets The Ten Commandments, which Sinyor says is a comparison he hears often.

"I think it's because there is only one other biblical comedy, Mel Brooks’ History of the World. But it is more like The Life of Brian because History of the World went through the ages and this is very much centred on the Exodus from Egypt."

Might this do for Moses what The Life of Brian did for Jesus?

"This started life as a film script and I may make it as a film at some point in the future. Unlike The Life of Brian where you’ve got one character, I sort of knew I needed to have Not Moses and Moses. In a sense, philosophically as well, I knew I wanted to have God in the play. So I knew there were certain things and a couple of scenes that I wanted to do from the off. And then I just had a huge amount of fun writing it. It’s not quite a parody of The Ten Commandments but if you take that film, which has Moses, the Princess, Pharaoh, Rameses, you’ve got certain obvious characters that come to mind. And I knew that I wanted to have Not Moses, a slave in the background of the story in Bible terms, very much in the foreground of the story in this play. You’re looking at the story of the Exodus from the point of view of those slaves in the background, not from the point of view of Moses, who was at the Palace enacting things with Pharaoh. So it’s that dichotomy of having two different families, the slave family in the foreground with the Moses story on the side."

So how did it get to be a play in the theatre rather than a film, when you’ve always been a filmmaker?

"About a year ago someone said to me 'you should do it as a play' and I thought, you’re right! I’m constantly going to the theatre, it’s such an exciting medium, always sold out and quite often people are laughing uproariously. And quite often I go to the cinema and there’s no one sitting in there two weeks after the film has opened. And it goes to DVD and it’s on Netflix very quickly and you’re not experiencing the same amount of fun. You see theatre shows  like The Book of Mormon and Spamalot that have longevity, and for me this story was too funny and too interesting - and potentially a bit challenging – to see disappear after a couple of weeks in a cinema."

It sounds as if you’re going to want to be there every night so you can hug yourself when the audience laughs…

"I was planning on it but I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that the actors would not be jumping up and down to have the director there every night. I may well have to go in disguise. But it’s an extraordinary experience to be in a cinema or a theatre and hear the audience responding to something. So although I am sure I won’t be there every night, I might dress up in disguise on occasions."

My mind is boggling, what will you dress up as? If Moses – or NotMoses – you would be noticed! So it’s a bit like Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, where two minor characters from Hamlet take centre stage and Hamlet himself soliloquises away in the background?

"The Moses story is there. I shouldn’t call it a bastardisation, a clear retelling or reinvention of the Moses story is there but for me it was important to have a Not Moses – he’s like an atheist, he doesn’t believe in God and he wants to lead the Children of Israel out of Egypt without the help of anyone else. He says ‘we should just get out, go!’ and no one listens to him because people are waiting for God to perform miracles. So, if you like, he’s the rebel slave hanging around in the background of the biblical story. Because I am sure there were people saying ‘let’s get the hell out of here during those two hundred odd years. People rebel and that was one of the things I wanted to tackle. The Bible is itself really weird on this. We have a point of view of what these slaves were doing and what they looked like almost from art and the film. The truth is they left with gold and silver and they seemed to have flocks and cows and it’s difficult to get a handle on what kind of slaves these were."

It’s obvious you’ve read the Torah, checked out the portions. Did you have the sort of upbringing where that’s a given?

"We come from a Sephardi background and we used to go to Synagogue every Shabbat. And I used to read that portion from the Hertz Chumash in English year after year until I was 16 or 17. So it sort of engrained itself. And when I started going again when I was older, I read it again. And at times I read it with an uncritical eye. At one point I did a Project Seed thing and was sold on what they’re trying to do (‘Seed provides adult and family Jewish education across the UK through formal study and informal experiences. We aim to strengthen the family through positive Jewish encounters and by sharing the richness of Jewish life, learning and values’ – from Project Seed website) I thought okay I’ll take that leap of faith and then I undid that leap of faith and now when I go to synagogue I do look at it with a more critical eye."

Your God is emphatically He with a capital H, but then Miriam is not just playing a supporting role, she’s playing a leader’s role. Tell me more about her. It sounds as if God and Miriam are the partnership leading the Children of Israel out of Egypt.

"Miriam comes into the play more and more as it goes on but she is a feminist – not even a feminist, she is just a fighter for equal women’s rights in a very patriarchal world. And even the other women in it are like; ‘shut up and make the soup’. She is very much - and I stress this is a comedy - an early forerunner of the fight for women’s rights, within not just religion but generally. And she probably has the strongest speech towards the end of the play, which lays out a position, more or less in front of God. People do challenge God. There are scenes where Moses does that in the burning bush story in the Bible. He says ‘who am I?’ and I have just taken that a lot further."

I love that you take it seriously as well, though the press have stressed the comedy and irreverence. It sounds as if there are a lot of laughs but it’s not just sending it up.

"No, in a weird way it’s very difficult. You have children and you like the idea of bringing them up in the Jewish religion. We’re caught up in incredibly difficult times and I want my children to be brought up with a cosy, Jewish, lovely warm environment, which offers  a two-year old and a nine-month old Hannukah and it’s marvellous and the memories one has (of Festivals) from Passover to Sukkot are all amazing. But I think if one’s talking about the truth behind these stories, then I certainly think that some of that is challenged by the context of the play."

Do you belong to a synagogue?

"We belong to New North London but because I am Sephardi I also go to the Persian Community at Kinloss. So we alternate between the two, if I go out of the house and turn left I go to New North London, if I go right it’s Kinloss."

You’ve said the audience has a role to play in your show as the Children of Israel…

"When I adapted it from a film into a play, it was a joy. For example in the film I’d been talking to people about how you create 600,000 0r three million people, so there was that whole CGI thing and I was having conversations very seriously about how to make it as a film. When I came to the play I thought, how am I going to do that? I’ll just turn the audience into the Children of Israel! They will experience, for example being harangued by a taskmaster and the 10 plagues will be experienced in some way shape or form that I am not going to go into …! So there is that inclusive quality that theatre offers you and at some points the fourth wall will be broken. I did have a couple of read-throughs previously, after doing workshops on it with the cast and it was extraordinary. We had 20 people who were laughing uproariously. So the idea of having 350 is even better. And I think it will be cinematic as well, it’s not a static play. It has nine members in the cast, down from 600,000."

The Arts Theatre has a good track record of getting lots of people laughing at Jewish humour, with Bad Jews for example, doesn't it?

"It’s a really lovely theatre and they’ve got Ruby Wax coming there in January, which is interesting as well; and more than anything else they are just so enthusiastic to have the play there and give it a ten-week run, which for a new play is really quite extraordinary."

Jews are good at laughing at themselves – I guess they can laugh at religion too?

"I think we can, but I’d be mortified if Christians and Muslims and atheists didn’t come along as well. It’s not like only Christians went to see The Life of Brian. There is something underneath this which well, is just funny, but hopefully it applies to people across the Abrahamic faiths and beyond. It won’t be a solely Jewish cast and it won’t be a solely white cast. So we are doing our best to make it appeal across the board and make a point at the same time."

You’re playing over Purim and Passover – it’ll be like a Purimspiel for Purim.

"Yes we are playing over Purim which will be an exciting night I think. And I have said to the theatre that they should kashrut the bar over Pesach (Passover) and they should certainly be selling matzah sandwiches of some sort. And I haven’t pointed it out to them but they certainly won’t be selling many beers. And yes it’s certainly playing over Purim. Seder night will be difficult, certainly the first night. I think they’ll be marketing to anyone except the Jewish audience that night. Who knows about the second night…"

Second night Seder at your play perhaps?

"There is a Seder in the play as well, the leaving from Egypt."

Actually it might have quite a resonance because it’s so timely, as it’s playing at the right moment running over Passover.

"Yes, it’s the best slot I could have hoped for. Well, I could have hoped for it about five years ago, that would have been good as well."

Manchester does seem to be a hotbed of Jewish creativity, what with Nick Hytner Howard Jacobson and Jack Rosenthal, to name but three.

"I think there is something about Manchester that is very different from London. My children are being brought up in London. Every time I go back, which I do four or five times a year, it does remind you you’re outside of it in a way you’re not in London. In fact the Jewish family in Not Moses that Not Moses is brought up in are going to be talking with Manchester accents."

So they’re 'provincial’ in other words. You must be saying it’s a plus factor too?

"Oh it gives you creative inspiration.  I lived in Los Angeles for a while, where they’re only going to come up with stories about valet parking – they have no angst to build on. Angst is a crucial part. And there’s more angst in Manchester than in London I think – or there could be more in Leeds – I wouldn’t want to claim the crown."

By Judi Herman

NotMoses runs Thursday 10 March – Saturday 14 May, 7.30pm & 2.30pm, £19.50-£69.50, at the Arts Theatre, Great Newport St, WC2H 7JB. http://notmosesonstage.com

Review: Nutcracker! The Musical ★★★ – Judi Herman has fun at a new seasonal show based on a familiar tale

Christmas time and it must be time for The Nutcracker, although Tchaikovsky’s ballet based on an adaptation of ETA Hoffmann's story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by Alexandra Dumas père called The Tale of the Nutcracker, only enjoyed this success from the late 1960’s onwards. The music is now so well-known that it’s not surprising Nancy Holson, no slouch when it comes to taking on big imaginative projects (last year she and her daughter staged JFest, a Festival of new Jewish Theatre, in New York ) wanted to put words to it and turn it into a musical. The London production, directed by Ollie Fielding, follows a tryout production in upstate New York.

Clara, a young girl, creeps downstairs on Christmas Eve to play with her favourite present – a Nutcracker. But a mysterious magician, Drosselmeyer, is waiting to sweep her off on a magical adventure. Tchaikovsky’s libretto was written by Marius Petipa, who helped choreograph the first production, and so he filleted the storyline to produce the ballet sequences we know and love.

Holson has given the story a present-day wrap. Young Marie’s Uncle Drosselmier (Marie Coyne and Kris Webb) read the ‘The Tale of the Hard Nut’ in the book her brings her for Christmas, so that the youngster can let her imagination take flight and enter the world of the book – actually transforming from Doctor’s daughter to the Princess Pirlipat (at least the adult Princess, for in Act One she is still a baby), daughter of Queen Wanda and King Wilhelm (aka her parents, for Ann Marcuson, who plays her mother, harassed doctor Stahlbaum, plays the Queen and Henry Wryley-Birch, who plays her father Mr S, plays the King).

All of the above clearly have a lot of fun with their characters, especially when they enter the world of the storybook. Designer Eleanor Field gives them attractively flamboyant fairy-tale costumes, which contrast nicely with the more prosaic onesies and track suits of the real world and she clearly relishes the fun of designing the set of a pop up storybook.

One of the characters having the most fun is the villainous Mouseyrinks, Queen (not King please note!) of the mice and rats that overrun the palace as in the ballet’s story. Jamie Birkett plays her with evil panache and it’s a possibly coincidental bonus that she resembles Marcuson’s Queen, almost as if she is her evil sister. In a sort of mash up with The Sleeping Beauty, when Mouseyrinks’ children are decimated at the monarch’s orders, she manages to slip past the nursemaids and guards watching over the princess to curse her – and so the quest for a way to reverse the curse, which will require bravery and lead to adventure and perhaps true love, begins … and oh yes, of course there is a Sugar Plum Fairy to play her part in righting wrongs and trying to ensure that happy ending!

Holson has a ball writing lyrics for Tchaikovsky’s glorious music and if you know the ballet, you’ll have fun identifying the tunes of the dances she transforms into songs to tell the story and move the action along. The whole cast sings with relish and dances attractively (thanks to musical director Robert Hazle and choreographer Alejandro Postigo). Occasionally it’s hard to hear the lyrics, but mostly they are greeted with appreciative audience laughter as appropriate. And it’s a brave choice to opt for not amplifying the cast, which is helped by the pre-recorded music kept at a fairly low level, though perhaps hindered by the theatre’s acoustic.

Leigh Rhianon Coggins makes a lovely warm Sugar Plum Fairy, and her voice and those of Marcuson, Coyne and Birkett stand out. The whole company works nicely together in a range of roles from palace servants to boisterously evil mice. There’s a lovely little cameo wise owl, courtesy of performer Helen Reuben and puppet maker Emily Bestow. And a great running joke where king Wilhelm blows his own trumpet to herald royal proclamations – until the Queen decides it’s her turn (yes, both performers can blow their horns!)

It is uneven and not every tune lends itself to lyrics, but it is all good fun and provides a bit of seasonal magic. Holson’s takeaway message to the audience is ‘don’t neglect your imagination’ and she and her company certainly do their best to help it to take flight.

By Judi Herman

Nutcracker! The Musical runs until Sunday 3 January, 7.30pm & 4pm, £12 at Pleasance Theatre, Carpenters Mews, North Rd, N7 9EF; 020 7609 1800. www.pleasance.co.uk

Review: Queen Anne ★★★★ – Judi Herman doffs her cap to the team that brings to life the reign of a little-known queen and her most influential courtiers

The British do love plays about their monarchs, especially when they show the Royals as real people and when there are resonances for now in the politics of the time. Helen Edmundson’s new play, Queen Anne, is a fine addition to the canon, exploring the reign of a Queen, perhaps known best for the furniture style named after her – and even that was after her death.

Queen Anne was the second daughter of James II. She came to the throne in 1702 after the death of her elder sister Mary, joint Monarch with William of Orange, Anne having been designated as their successor. Despite seventeen pregnancies by her husband, Prince George of Denmark, only one son survived infancy and he died aged just 11, so Anne died without any surviving children and was the last monarch of the House of Stuart. The Act of Union between England and Scotland was signed during her reign and Marlborough’s army defeated the French and Bavarians at the Battle of Blenheim.

Edmundson’s device here is to reflect events through the extraordinarily passionate friendship of Anne (Emma Cunliffe) with the formidable Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Natascha McElhone), a powerful friend and a dangerous enemy to everyone, including the Queen.

Edmundson also manages to make the power politics in a Protestant England at war with Catholic France entirely clear and fascinating and it paints a lively portrait of England’s power couple Sarah and her husband, that great general the Duke of Marlborough, (Robert Cavanah), who get to build the huge and grandiose Blenheim Palace as a reward for his victory at the eponymous battle.

Inevitably, there’s a lot of exposition, especially in the first scenes of the play. Happily Edmundson hits on the idea of bringing this to life with witty, well-realised set pieces using the scabrous satire of the pamphlets, prints and songs of the period. They’re presented here by a sparky Daniel Defoe (Carl Prekopp) and an urbane and worldly-wise Jonathan Swift (Tom Turner). A cruelly grotesque ‘Queen Anne’ padded out to look heavily pregnant, recalls the puppets in Spitting Image and pamphlets and broadsheet ballads shower the stage with paper, eagerly gathered by the public and so providing a useful, eye-opening parallel with the spread of stories by 20th century mass media and going viral in the age of the internet.

The play is at its best when exploring the consequences of’ ‘Mrs Morgan’s’ fervent, consuming and part-requited love of ‘Mrs Freeman’, as Anne and Sarah did in fact call each other; and the rising of the star of a new lady in waiting in the monarch’s life, the ambitious but genuinely caring Abigail Hill, later Masham (displaying ferocious intelligence and determination in Beth Parker’s quietly vivid performance), at the expense of the almost recklessly over-ambitious Sarah.

Emma Cunliffe give a fine portrait of a Queen disillusioned by events, yet eventually strengthened by the regal authority she needs to lead the nation. Edmundson writes a wonderfully lusty Sarah, in love with life, power - and her husband John Churchill; and Natascha McElhone realizes her wonderfully, splendid in her overweening self-belief and belief in the power she has over Anne. It’s really no surprise when she overreaches herself and the Queen’s stony rejection of her bewildered and angry erstwhile favourite is a powerful climax for both women. There’s strong support from Jonathan Broadbent as the politically astute Tory Robert Harley and from Richard Hope as Lord Chancellor Godolphin, bent on intrigue and in league with the Duke of Marlborough, a robust Robert Cavanah.

Director Natalie Abrahami orchestrates the private and the public to give satisfying light and shade and never lets the action drop into cod restoration comedy, even in those scurrilous ‘supper club’ scenes. And Hannah Clark’s design incorporates a simple truck four-poster bed that keeps the stage clear for action, so matters move along as fast as the exposition will allow. The authentic period costumes are attractively set off by elaborate hairstyles for the women and periwigs for the men that make you see why men affected them and what women might have seen in them. Edmundson’s play is a fascinating study of the power of love and the love of power and a delightfully lively and engrossing way to get to understand a monarch at such a turning point in our Island story.

By Judi Herman

Queen Anne continues runs until Saturday 23 January, 7.30pm & 1.30pm, £16-£37 at The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, CV37 7LS; 0844 800 1110. www.rsc.org.uk

Review: The Homecoming ★★★★ – Judi Herman is drawn in by the vile power of Pinter

I saw the original production of Harold Pinter’s dark, multi-award-winning comedy as a precocious, theatre-mad teenager. I wouldn't have been allowed near it if it had been a film, it would have been x-rated in those days for sure! The homecoming of the title is the return to the flinty bosom of his East End family of Teddy, a college lecturer Stateside with a murky past in this all-male household ruled over by retired butcher Max. Teddy brings home the, er, "bacon" in the alluring shape of Ruth, his wife of five years. The power play between the brothers, their father and above all between Ruth and her in-laws is the meat of the play. I particularly remember Ian Holm, sinister and dangerous as Lenny the pimp; and Vivien Merchant, Pinter’s first wife, who created the role of Ruth, and the way she crossed her legs causing shock waves to ripple through the theatre – and I don't mean because of the static in her nylons…

Gemma Chan makes the role of Ruth her own in Jamie Lloyd’s spare and scabrously funny production. She has extraordinarily precise body language, at once apparently passive, exposed, vulnerable even, and yet enigmatic – you wonder what is running through her mind as she takes a lone night stroll outside her husband’s family home. You wait uncomfortably for a reaction when she meets these unlovable foul-mouthed Londoners (Max habitually refers to all women, including his late wife, as bitches and worse), enduring their bullying and menacing in apparently dignified silence. Then there is that pivotal see-saw moment where the power shifts. It is suddenly obvious that Ruth has the measure of John Simm’s predatory Lenny. In her hands, the glass of water Pinter gives her as a bargaining chip turns not into wine, but a dangerous, potential aphrodisiac.

Although there are scenes when director Jamie Lloyd (who worked with Pinter himself on productions of his plays) brilliantly fields the whole dysfunctional family, it’s the tussles in those duologues, precisely calibrated by both actors and director, that are the guilty pleasures for me. Every family member is on the take, using and abusing each other is second nature and the language is shocking and brutal, but it’s the way this family communicates and it’s almost as if the care they take to choose their epithets is the way they show they care.

John Simm and Ron Cook open the play with cross-generational sparring that sets the tone and they create a magnificently vile father and son relationship. Cook is all ineffectual, bullying bluster and Simm is immediately silky and menacing – a terrific exponent of Pinter. Gary Kemp’s Teddy is a fine study in disintegration from lofty academic to his old place low in the pecking order in this disreputable band of brothers. Keith Allen’s Sam, a chauffeur by trade, intimates why he might be a bachelor, though this can never be articulated in this testosterone-fuelled household, where youngest brother Joey is a failing boxer (effectively ineffectual in John Macmillan’s almost touching performance). This starry ensemble cast works together wonderfully to create Pinter’s claustrophobic world on Soutra Gilmour’s clever set – a sparsely furnished room dominated by Dad’s ancient armchair. Lighting designer Richard Howell transforms the realism into what looks a terrifying 3D projection that traps the characters in a blood red frame, to sound designer George Dennis’ perfect, brash soundtrack.

Pinter would have been proud of his amanuensis!

By Judi Herman

'The Homecoming' runs until 13 February 2016, 7.30pm & 2.30pm, £29.50-£69.50, at Trafalgar Studios, 14 Whitehall, SW1A 2DY; 0844 871 7632. www.atgtickets.com

JR OutLoud: Larry Mollin talks to Judi Herman about his new play 'The Screenwriter's Daughter'

Larry Mollin talks to JR's arts editor Judi Herman about his new play, The Screenwriter's Daughter, charting the tempestuous relationship between Hollywood screenwriter Ben Hecht and his free-spirited daughter Jenny, who joins the radical New York Living Theatre in the 1960s against Hecht's will. This rich and powerful Jewish writer was blacklisted in the UK in the 1940s and ’50s for his political activism, but he has also been recognised for his human rights efforts in creating public awareness of the Holocaust and furthering the cause of Jews around the world. His 120 screenplays include Gone with the Wind and Scarface, which won the first Oscar for Original Screenplay in 1927, and for Alfred Hitchcock he wrote a number of his best psycho-dramas, receiving his final Academy Award nomination for Notorious. His stage writing includes The Front Page, the sharp and witty comedy set in a newspaper office he co-wrote with Charles MacArthur (also filmed several times, including with Jack Lemmon and Walther Matthau).

The Screenwriter's Daughter runs until Sunday 29 November. 7pm & 2pm, £15-£19.50, Leicester Square Theatre, 6 Leicester Place, WC2H 7BX; 020 7734 2222. www.leicestersquaretheatre.com

Review: Treasure ★★★ – Pinski’s parade of shtetl shnorrers would do Gogol’s Government Inspector proud, says Judi Herman

Could Pinksi be the Jewish Gogol? His story certainly follows in the great tradition of The Government Inspector. It makes you wonder if he could possibly know the writings of that 16th-century sceptic Ben Jonson, whose citizen comedies Volpone and The Alchemist also depend on wily antiheroes pulling the wool over the eyes of a succession of greedy, gullible types for whom you have no sympathy at all.

Chone the gravedigger’s affable idiot son Judke brings home a stash of gold coins. He’s dug them up in the corner of the graveyard where he’s buried his beloved dog. Trouble is, he can’t remember exactly where that is, so there’s no way of knowing how much more there is, if any. His pretty, resourceful sister Tille seizes on as the opportunity of a lifetime, with a clever ruse to use the money to buy a premature ‘trousseau’ to convince folk (especially marriage brokers and prospective bridegrooms) that there’s a fabled amount more where that came from. Her gloomy, grasping parents though, see the coins – and her ruse – as a threat rather than an opportunity, which will just attract all the wrong sort of attention. In a way both are correct, you could see the glass as half full or half empty.

The delicious Tille, (truly scrumptious, in Olivia Bernstone’s glowing performance) does indeed attract a matchmaker to her door straightaway. But he is followed by a parade of ever more grasping and opportunistic denizens of the shtetl, from the President of the synagogue to the previous owner of the field where Judke is presumed to have found the coins.

Pinski’s comedy descends into potentially uproarious farce as the villagers themselves descend on the graveyard on their frantic treasure hunt. Yet he also builds in moments of quiet storytelling – a small chorus of children exchanging moral tales. And the climax of the play even takes in magical realism, for the residents of the graveyard rise to compare notes on the eventful night when the living literally trample on their graves, in their obsession with what is transitory, material.

As discussed in the current issue of JR and elsewhere on this blog, Pinski’s play was extraordinarily popular and remained in the Yiddish repertoire over 30 years, until the Shoah, when it was even performed in the Vilna Ghetto.

On the strength of Alice Malin’s production at the Finborough Theatre, the main attraction must be Pinski’s heroine, an extraordinarily outspoken and sensual young woman, rising like the phoenix above the strictures of life, especially for a woman, in this small, claustrophobic Jewish community. So obviously in command of the situation is she, that the visiting marriage broker soon realises that it makes sense to deal directly with her, cutting out her mother, the middle woman. She is inspired, intoxicated by the coins that represent a way out of poverty if she plays her cards right. That of course is in the writing but Bernstone revels in Tille’s ingenuity and sheer spunk!

The contrast with her mother, Jachne-Braine’s (Fiz Marcus) constantly downturned mouth and disapproving voice and mien, is obviously important. The clue is in her name for Jachne can suggest a woman is not just a gossip and busybody but also coarse or shallow.

Meanness seems to run in the family, for so poor are the gravedigger and his wife that they are prepared to fight their children for the coins. This is hardly the archetypal Jewish mother looking out for her child and the money gets in the way of Chone's (James Pearse) paternal feelings too. Luckily for Sid Sagar’s touchingly gangling and awkward Judke, he and Tille do look out for each other and there is a sweetnesss in the bond between them.

Adaptor Colin Chambers a prolific theatre writer. Indeed, his book Other Spaces was an inspiration for me at university. His translation includes some useful nips and tucks, though for my money, he could have made a few more. Those children telling tales have been left to their own devices by parents who have only treasure hunting on their minds. I guess Pinski deliberately changes pace and slows down the momentum here, but this interlude of Brechtian moralising from these precocious infants (the young actors acquit themselves very well, but their characters are perhaps a little priggish) is not entirely successful. And each hopeful, acquisitive visitor to the apparently nouveau riche household rather out stays their welcome, once they have established their characters and motives.

Chambers’ translation, with its carefully-chosen words has that ‘old-fashioned’ feel that gives a sense of a different time and place, though it does perhaps feel a trifle self-conscious. Alice Malin directs her large (19-strong) cast with a larger-than-life playing style to match, which again would work even better if the scenes were shorter. Fiz Marcus’ Jachne-Braine in particular and James Pearse’s Chone to a lesser extent, adopt facial masks and find a trope and a note for their characters, though again, both would be even more effective if the scenes were shorter.

Designer Rebecca Brower’s dark all-wooden set plays its part in creating the lost world of the shtetl. It’s about as spacious as I have seen in the Finborough’s tiny space, which is just as well with such a large cast of villagers. Happily Fiddler on the Roof without the music it is not (although there is music for atmosphere and to link scenes, it is not live or specially composed, which is perhaps a missed opportunity). But it throws light on a fascinating writer and his vital contribution to the body of popular Yiddish literature.

By Judi Herman

Treasure runs until Saturday 14 November. Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Rd, SW10 9ED; 0844 847 1652. www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk

Review: The Merchant of Venice ★★★★ – Judi Herman finds funny girls on top form in Anna Niland’s pithy UK premiere of Tom Stoppard’s abridged version

The 500th anniversary of the Venice Ghetto might take place in 2016, but I feel as if I’ve already spent some time with its embattled Jewish community, at least as seen through Shakespeare’s eyes, as I watch The Merchant of Venice for the fourth time this year.

I guess this might be in contrast to the excited, noisily appreciative, mostly young audience at the National Youth Theatre's sparky and sparklingly funny production. Even if they are studying the play at school, this might be the first time they've seen it, so it’s good to be able to report how much they enjoyed a comic treat. The play is after all dubbed a comedy, even though it also presents huge problems and not just for the Jews in the audience.

The young cast is not afraid to hit those problems head on. The NYT originally performed this version by Tom Stoppard in China in 2008 with a cast made up of both young British and Chinese actors. This was the year of the Beijng Olympics, so they experienced artistic censorship “heightened by human rights controversy”, writes director Anna Niland in a programme note. Despite this, she continues, “the play’s themes of persecution, racism and inclusion rang true to local audiences and our young international cast.

"With Italy experiencing an immigration crisis that brings these themes to the fore, I have decided to set the play in modern Venice. However, I also think it’s crucial to hang onto a semblance of the historic Venice Shakespeare was writing about.” She goes on to talk about exploring the play through the eyes of Shylock the ‘alien’ and posits that the production “will ask how much has really changed for those considered alien today.”

The production sets out its stall before the play begins, with establishing shots – silent face-offs between the main protagonists, much of it to the gorgeous accompaniment of composer and musical director Tristan Parkes’ setting of 'In Belmont lives a lady…' perfect for Grace Surey's smoky voice. She is surely a future jazz star. The Christians may exchange meaningful glances, perhaps to establish the possibly homoerotic relationship between Antonio and Bassanio, but all of them glare at Shylock. Andrew Hanratty’s Antonio has a gravitas beyond his years and Jason Imlach’s Bassanio sports a useful beard which gives him maturity too. Add to this Luke Pierre’s tall, rather elegant Shylock and it’s easy to take all three very seriously indeed.

And just because Pierre’s Shylock is so dignified, the contempt in which he is held by Antonio and Bassanio, and later his humiliation and ruin by Portia in court, have the power to shock.  True, Shylock and Antonio gingerly shake hands, which is more contact than I’ve seen in other productions this year, but then the eponymous merchant does indeed ‘spit upon’ Shylock’s ‘Jewish gabardine’. I’ll assume the couple of titters evoked by those Jew-baiters and haters Salerio and Salanio (a vicious double act from Oliver West and Conor Meaves) thrusting the pig-head masks they are wearing at Shylock, were down to discomfort.

The gabardine in question is made rather a colourful affair by the addition of coloured ribbons at the waist, evoking tzitzes (the prayer fringes of the Orthodox Jew) with the colours perhaps also suggesting the Spanish origins of this Sephardi Jew.

Cecilia Carey's striking costume and design are a vital part of Niland's bold concept. Her Carnival-time Venice is exuberantly, edgily stylish but in its own almost eccentric way. True the Carnival masks are traditional, but Alice Feetham's poised, intelligent Portia is a lady in red with a style and sexy panache all her own. It's in eye-catching contrast to Jessica's black and pink pleats beneath a clever cape which becomes a hood when she pulls it over her head, as a modest Jewish maiden should, to go outdoors.

But the apogee of her costume design is surely the extraordinary confection sported by Lauren Lyle's wildly funny Prince of Arrogan (their spelling - possibly Stoppard's - not mine!). Lyle brilliantly exploits its slinky contours and purple sash to create her comically androgynous suitor and relishes sashaying on impossibly high platforms, as she quite literally feels up each of the 'caskets' as if it were Portia herself! Before I leave the clever cross casting in the comedy roles that ensures jobs for the girls, let me make honourable mention of Paris Campbell's equally ardent Prince of Morocco; and Megan Parkinson's Lancelot Gobbo, the cheekily insouciant servant leaving Shylock's service for Bassanio's, together with versatile Grace Surey as Old Gobbo, his parent, here transformed into Old 'Mother' Gobbo - rather a fine below stairs double act.

This all matches Carey's equally quirky stage design, simple and versatile. The action takes place against a backdrop of huge Venetian (naturally) blinds and those three 'caskets' are actually three wooden structures that work separately or together to create steps, beds and the witness boxes in the courtroom scene.

Their quirkiest use though, is as those caskets, each flying a balloon of the relevant colour, gold, silver and of course lead! But happily there’s no way the so-called casket scene goes down like the proverbial lead balloon! The wickedly playful ‘Team Belmont’ of Feetham’s Portia and Melissa Taylor’s cheerful, wise-cracking Nerissa have a great time sending up the suitors Portia must entertain; and Nerissa’s gleeful rendering of a relevant musical number for each casket – e.g. ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ for the silver casket  - goes down a treat with the audience, who joined in and sang along. Mistress and waiting gentlewoman work up an authentic tension as Bassanio rejects each wrong casket in turn and Portia and Bassanio achieve a touching tenderness as they fall into each other’s arms in relief.

Meanwhile, the tension in the home life of Shylock and Jessica is a much darker affair. Though again the production achieves a touching moment – for me perhaps the most telling. At the climax of the very few lines they share, it’s actually a mute moment. In one of the most moving gestures of the production, Francene Turner’s Jessica, about to leave her father forever, cannot go without giving him a last desperate, lingering hug – a hug that clearly takes him by surprise and moves him too. It's all the more poignant because he does not know its significance. When he learns it though, his rage is all the more understandable, so he earns sympathy when Oscar Porter-Brentford’s supportive Tubal reports that the errant Jessica has given away her late mother’s engagement ring in exchange for a monkey.

Given that a female Doge (stately Ellise Chappell) presides over Venice's court, it might be considered an anomaly that Portia has to disguise herself as a man to appear as a lawyer, but, if anything, in this modern setting it genuinely raises eyebrows that she has to do so, perhaps just because it reminds the audience of the realities of life for women in some countries today. Of course though, for the comedy to work, Bassanio and Gratiano must not recognise their brand new wives, so disguise is a given. Cole Edwards’ Gratiano achieves the brash comedy in his role and displays the casual racism written into his character and Gavi Singh Chera is a Lorenzo as interested in his bride as in her fortune.

Although I’m not entirely convinced that the production draws the parallels with today’s immigration crisis, I am sure that this fresh reading of the play ensures that those who have seen it before take a fresh look at it and those who are new to it will have a clear idea of the comedy and the problems – and what all the fuss is about.

By Judi Herman

The Merchant of Venice runs until Wednesday 2 December. 7.30pm & 2.30pm. £12-£19.50. National Theatre, South Bank, SE1 9PX; 020 7452 3000. www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

Review: Pure Imagination ★★★★ – Judi Herman enters the tune-fuelled world of Leslie Bricusse

If like me, you relished the toothsome trip round Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory in the 1971 movie musical of Roald Dahl's dark and delicious children's classic, you'll have no problem identifying the title of this equally moorish compilation of the words and music of Leslie Bricusse.

Gene Wilder's pitch-perfect Willie Wonka sang the song like a silky caress in the film and, as the programme informs us, it's been covered by stars including Michael Feinstein, Sammy Davis Jr, Jamie Cullum and Mariah Carey, and featured on TV shows ranging from Glee to Family Guy.

The joy of the man's genius, as explored and celebrated in this warm hug of a compilation show, is not just the range of fine singers attracted to Bricusse's work – it's the range of the work itself. The palpable delight in the auditorium comes as much from surprise at the rediscovery of yet another all-time favourite from the composer/lyricist's extraordinary back catalogue, as from the execution and charm of these five well-chosen performers.

Think Bond themes ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘You Only Live Twice’ (written with John Barry and Anthony Newley); cheerful, upbeat numbers like ‘On a Wonderful Day Like Today’ and ‘Out of Town’ (Housewives' Choice memories anyone?); inspirational anthems like Nina Simone's spine tingler ‘Feeling Good’ and Sir Harry Secombe's feel-good hit ‘If I Ruled the World’. There are also comedy novelty numbers, including Oscar-winning ‘Talk to the Animals’ from Dr Dolittle and ‘My Old Man's a Dustman’, which topped the charts on three continents; and of course there are the love songs, often with a specific original context, such as ‘Can You Read My Mind?’, the love number from the film Superman.

It’s good to be reminded not just of the man's music but also of his musicals. Bricusse seems to have a penchant for Victoriana and the Edwardian age, for his musicals on stage and screen include the Julie Andrews vehicle Victor/Victoria, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Dickens adaptations Scrooge and Pickwick. Then there’s Sherlock Holmes – The Musical, which yields a great excuse for a jolly old Cockney knees-up with showstopper 'Down the Apples 'n' Pears'.

But this show is stuffed with showstoppers and wonderful curiosities. Did you know that Bricusse wrote clever lyrics to Henry Mancini's Pink Panther Theme? It's wonderfully realised here as a segue from ‘Talk to the Animals’, where designer Tim Goodchild thinks pink and lithe Giles Terera glides round the stage lashing his tail while pursued by the rest of the company – complete with raincoats and magnifying glasses of course. The man writes lyrics to die for – perhaps literally in ‘Goldfinger’  – "He's the man, the man with the Midas touch, a spider's touch, such a cold finger … For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her, it's the kiss of death from Mister Goldfinger".

Happily all five members of the company – Terera as the Joker (a character from The Smell of the Greasepaint – The Roar of the Crowd), Dave Willetts as the Man (adding a lovely depth of emotion and gravitas in numbers including ‘Who Can I Turn To’ and ‘Once in a Lifetime’), Siobhan McCarthy as the Woman, Niall Sheehy as the Boy and Julie Atherton as the Girl – make sure their audience can hear every precious word. And they all manage to work up a head of emotional steam in the brief connections they have with each other, song on song. Versatile Terera is not just a performer with emotional depth (as seen during the number ‘What Kind of Fool Am I?’) and a lovely sense of fun (‘The Candy Man’) but a lovely mover too and Matthew Cole sets numbers around him to give him his head (or should that be feet!).

The powerful six-strong band, arranged to the side of the stage, feels like part of the cast and does Bricusse’s wonderful range of styles proud. MD Michael England, while at, and occasionally away from, the piano takes centre stage, generously sharing his stool with the performers.

So although designer Tim Goodchild has provided a swirling backdrop that can frame video and still images and morphs usefully to suggest the Bond credits, he has wisely kept the scenery simple to frame the talents of the cast – a swirl of music round the edge of the stage floor, reflecting the backdrop, to suggest the size of the composer’s oeuvre, and angular chairs in different styles and poster colours.

The evening aroused my curiosity about early shows such as The Smell of the Greasepaint… along with Stop the World – I Want to Get Off, surely due for a revival. And it’s great to report that the man is still writing. I’m just as curious to know more about his as yet unperformed new musical Sunday Dallas after enjoying the fun of ‘Hollywood Wives’, a number from the show that evokes the late great Jackie Collins, as it’s staged here featuring a Hollywood Diva and her claque, pursued by adoring males seeking selfies with her. I'm also happy to say that Bricusse’s 2009 biographical musical Sammy, about his friend and fine interpreter of so many of his songs, Sammy Davis Jr, is bound for London. Meanwhile there is this chance to get to know and enjoy a terrific selection from Bricusse’s songbook – even though it does not feature his 1973 song ‘Chutzpa’!

By Judi Herman

Pure Imagination runs until Saturday 17 October. 7.30pm & 2.30pm. £15-£50. St James Theatre, 12 Palace St, SW1E 5JA; 084 4264 2140. www.stjamestheatre.co.uk

If I were a rich girl… As Yiddish gem Treasure is unearthed at Finborough Theatre, Judi Herman polishes up on its backstory

What do The Dybbuk, The Golem and Fiddler on the Roof have in common? Their stories were all originally written in Yiddish. From Franz Kafka to Danny Kaye, the influence of Yiddish theatre is far reaching. Four years before the first professional production in Yiddish took place in a Romanian wine garden in 1876, one of its most influential writers, David Pinski, was born into a cosmopolitan Jewish family in Mohilev, Russia (now Belarus). He moved to Warsaw, Switzerland, Vienna and Berlin before emigrating to New York in 1899, where he lived for 50 years. While there he was an active member of Jewish cultural and political life and was president of the Jewish National Workers’ Alliance from 1920-22, and president of the Jewish Culture Society from 1930-53. Finally, in 1949, the committed left-wing Zionist moved to Israel, where he lived until his death in 1959.

Pinski wrote over 60 plays and there were novels too. His subject matter ranged from stories of the lives, struggles and dreams of the ordinary Jewish folk to Biblical themes, including both King David and King Solomon, their wives, and the coming of a future Messiah.

Treasure is arguably his comic masterpiece, revived here in a brand new adaptation by Colin Chambers. The play premiered in 1912 and remained popular in the Yiddish repertoire until the 1940s (with a production in the Vilna Ghetto in 1943), was staged in German by Max Reinhardt in 1919 and in English on Broadway in 1920. The story follows poor gravedigger’s daughter Tille, who must decide whether or not to keep a pile of gold coins her brother finds at the graveyard. Should she hand it in and remain in a life of drudgery or use it to turn her world around?

Its latest incarnation in a production at London’s Finborough Theatre is directed by Alice Malin. What drew her to Pinski’s comedy? “It’s a story of female emancipation and it has real wow factor. Tille seeks freedom by using found money for her own ends and that wowed me. Plus it’s resonant today in how humanely it treats poverty and approaches the subject of inequality. Its dirt poor protagonists are united by the same goals, being free and visible and having enough money to live. It’s really funny and outrageous, part farce, part tragedy.” Not to give too much away, as occupants of the graveyard come to life, it sounds as if Pinski’s story is magic realism. Alice agrees and adds that it’s “a strange surreal expressionist drama, judiciously nipped and tucked by Colin Chambers.”

Malin is confident the audience will share her enchantment with the “wry, witty heroine with chutzpah". She explains that "Tille is in her late teens and so poor that she has no prospects of marriage till her brother finds the treasure. She takes a massive gamble and going on the journey of its consequences is really intoxicating . She takes a massive punt buying clothes to make herself look genuinely rich so that potential husbands will consider her – not because she is vain and wants to look pretty, but to seize the chance of a better life. The whole community, especially the traditional menfolk, descend on the graveyard and demand that she be put back in her place, but she refuses and manages to keep one step ahead of them. Her mother Jachne Braine is constantly coming back with sarcastic comments, on the one hand terrified of the money and everyone wanting something from her, but on the other overwhelmed by the possibilities. The production boasts a cast of 15, with three Jewish cast members – Olivia Bernstone as Tille, Fiz Marcus as Jachne and Felicity Davidson as a town gossip. Malin assures that there will be dancing too, because “klezmer music and dance is really important.”

Treasure runs from Tuesday 20 October to Saturday 14 November. Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Rd, SW10 9ED; 0844 847 1652. www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk