Through the barricades – Bournemouth Daily Echo
Review by Linda Kirkman
THIS musical phenomenon has been wowing audiences worldwide for almost 23 years, thanks to a powerful story of love, hate, betrayal, compassion and every emotion between.
Anyone who has seen the stage version will have marvelled at the complex set, particularly the barricades. But it’s the music all makes Les Mis a favourite, and in this concert – naturally devoid of barricades etc – the stunning, thrilling score shone through.
The singers were to die for, giving much more than mere concert performances and showing just what true West End stars are made of.
David Shannon and Earl Carpenter, equally powerful as adversaries Jean Valjean and Javert; Rebecca Thornhill, Jaime Farr and Sophia Ragavelas, deeply moving as Fantine, Cosette and Eponine; Maurice Clarke and Chris Holland, bringing every ounce of emotion to Marius and Enjolras; Barry James and Rosie Ashe, waltzing round the stage and bringing the house down as the Thenardiers. And the evening’s Young Cosette (Gemma Bingham) and Gavroche (Jack Tavinor) also performed with all the confidence of seasoned veterans.
Never was a standing ovation better deserved.
Out of the West End – Sunday Tribune
by Padraig Kenny
WHEN Alan Stanford saw David Shannon in the lead role in Sweeney Todd at the Gate last year, he immediately spotted something he liked.
So much so that the West End actor and singer is now appearing in Second Age’s current touring production of Macbeth. Shannon has an undeniable presence about him, something you immediately know could be harnessed into a full scale incendiary intensity in the part of the Scottish lord.
He is pleasant and open, but shifts uncomfortably when talk turns to himself and his possible defining quality as an actor: “It’s the one thing Alan said to me in the bar after Sweeney he said ‘You have this presence that I’d love to work with’ . . . with Sweeney I had the opportunity to be big and foreboding. I guess that must be what it is. I’ve never been approached on the street or mugged, so maybe it’s working for me, ” he laughs.
Shannon has worked consistently in a variety of musicals since landing a part in Les Miserables in 1993. Having been a high profile figure in the West End over the past 15 years he has been less well known in Ireland until last year’s turn as the demon barber.
The move is considered a huge leap by some, and I ask him if he’s ever encountered any snobbery.
“Oh God yes. More so in England, I’ve got to say the wonderful thing, and one of the reasons I came home as well, is because there isn’t that snobbery here.
You’re considered an actor here, full stop. It’s brilliant, and it’s a real welcoming environment. Whereas in England I don’t think it’s that way. I never would have been seen for Macbeth in England. I would have been lucky if I’d gotten the tiniest of tiny parts in it standing in the background, because they’d just look at CV and say ‘Musicals?
No! He can’t act’.” He shrugs. “For some bizarre reason that’s the way they think. It’s a little bit insulting, because musical theatre is really hard, because you’re dealing with two different things, you’re not just dealing with having to say the lines – you’ve got to say the lines, you’ve got to remember the song, you’ve got to sing and you’ve got to sing it in time with the music.”
He sees Macbeth as a springboard, and it’s part of a journey back home which began with Sweeney Todd: “I always wanted to come home, and I had to come back to do something otherwise I would have got lost in the ether and just sort of disappeared.
Because it’s very hard if people don’t know who you are.”
Moving away from the West End has probably also given him more perspective on what he has left behind. “Reality TV is everything now, and it was always just a matter of time before it invaded musical theatre. It’s a real pity because there are a million people out there who are great at these jobs, and better than the people who end up doing them. What Andrew’s (Lloyd Webber) doing with Any Dream Will Do and The Sound of Music thing, is just a bit frustrating. You’ve got all these people out there going to college and training and working their way through the ranks like I did when I started, and then, you know, it’s gone in an instant because it’s all gone to TV now because that’s what sells tickets”.
Perhaps this is unavoidable because of the power of the marketplace? “That’s also an audience problem as well because they want to see names and they want to say they saw it on TV and they were part of that process I guess. If you want to do really great interesting theatre in the UK you have to do regional theatre instead, because great new theatre doesn’t work in London because people want Hairspray, they want Grease, they want The Sound of Music because it’s easier – and that’s not saying they’re rubbish, they’re all good in their own way, but we need to change that.”
He speaks glowingly of Macbeth director, Alan Stanford “a true scholar when it comes to Shakespeare”, and also about his friendship with Michael Colgan “great great fun, a real boy’s boy, and bloody good at running the Gate.”
For now he is content to be home, and he talks with boyish enthusiasm about Ireland’s theatre community: “I think it’s more of a family than the West End is, it’s less everyone out for themselves and more everyone out for the art, because the money isn’t as great, it’s not as good here. But you know what I honestly don’t care, because the work is good.”
