A Little Night Music

Apart from “Send in the Clowns” I didn’t know any of the music although I love all of the Sondheim I’ve seen and heard.

The piece and the performance were so breathtaking I couldn’t bring myself to seek out another show after it. I had high expectations for Sondheim performed by the Royal Conservatoire and they were comfortably exceeded.

I thought it a bit ironic to be going to a show with this title at 10.00 (am!) but as the story is set north of the arctic circle in the endless days they have at high summer, the irony is maybe entirely appropriate.

It was the 12th performance I’ve seen on the Fringe this year. The standard has been remarkably high and this was a marvellous way to round the season off.

A Little Night Music is my favourite Sondheim musical so I went into this production with a critical eye. I came out with a beaming smile. This production did the work justice and is successful largely due to the quality of the band and the cast, who are masters students at the Royal Scottish Conservatoire.
This review is very detailed because I am a Sondheim nerd.

Firstly the acting; this is a show full of big characters and it would be easy to play the characters as caricatures without much subtlety. I thought most actors did a fantastic job at this, in particular Fredrick Egerman and Charlotte Malcom. Some of the performances felt a bit less refined but this can be forgiven due to English not being a mother tongue. In any case all performances were made by the excellent quality of the singing. Comedic timing was largely good and although the audience was quite quiet when I saw it, I have no doubt they enjoyed it all the same.

An earlier review criticises the book (script) - I disagree entirely. I think everything is made clear in a very succinct manner and the staging and directing choices support the book nicely.

With a Sondheim show the devil is in the detail when it comes to the lyrics and diction is incredibly important. I thought the performance of Carl-Magnus in “In Praise of Women” was particularly effective due to fantastic phrasing and diction. One of my favourite songs in the show is “Now/Later/Soon” because of the sophisticated wit and detail in the lyrics; despite the clear diction from Fredrik’s performer I felt the tempo was too fast for the detail to be conveyed clearly. There’s a tricky balance to be had when choosing tempo but I think it is among the most important choices in a Sondheim show and largely the rest of the tempos in the show were very very good.

The singing in the show is sublime. This is a very tricky score and it’s so refreshing to see a cast perform it seemingly effortlessly. My favourite vocal performances were from Shane Ferris as Fredrik and Jen Cassidy as Charlotte, in particular in “Every Day a Little Death”. The nuance of this performance was exceptional, subtle, and possibly the best I’ve ever seen it done. I also enjoyed what seemed like a conscious choice to make “The Miller’s son” slightly more contemporary in sound - a very nice stylistic choice for distinguishing the maid Petra from the upper class. A number of times in the show soloists sang behind the beat in sections of rigid tempo, such as at the start of “The Glamorous Life”- if it’s due to it being hard to hear the band through the monitors on stage then I’m sympathetic. Otherwise I think the cast should make a concerted effort not to fall behind the beat - it has a significant impact on comprehension of the lyric.
I think special commendations are in order for Michaela Elise Fox for her performance of “Liaisons” - this is one of those songs in the Sondheim canon (like “Children and Art”) which is deceptively simple but bursting with potential. There’s the added difficulty of playing an older character as a young performer. I found this performance utterly enthralling and probably the most impressive in the show given how much it is on the actress to “make” that song.

Final performance praise obviously needs to go to Anna Toogood for her performance of “Send in the Clowns”. She really got across the change in Désirée, and a sang a lovely melodic interpretation of song.

Now onto the band. I have nothing but high praise for the musical directors Hudson Crowe and Noah Pott. The band sounded tight and beautiful and the choices made for the show made me very excited. I spoke with one of them at the end of the show and they confirmed to me that they spliced together the film version and musical version of “The Glamorous Life” which, despite having the same name, are two completely separate songs. This choice might seem relatively uninteresting but it is certainly a controversial move among Sondheim fanatics. On one hand you give the character of Fredrika a beautiful solo that expresses more of her character’s feelings but on the other hand it breaks up the delicate balance in the original form that Sondheim wrote. I do however think this was a successful choice and ultimately a good one. The film version of “The Glamorous Life” is a hidden gem that deserves its place in this production. Other successes are in the cutting of music (for the sake of Fringe timings) and the movement around of songs like “Remember” to make it act a transitions. This felt natural and convincing. I think I only noticed one ensemble “quintet” entry in the second half that sounded a little bit awkward but it soon worked out. The score must have been in some way condensed for this production but, despite having an ear for this stuff, I wouldn’t have been able to tell. All the important instruments could be heard when they needed to be heard and the band sounded rich and full, particularly in the gorgeous “Night Waltz”. I’m particularly impressed by the, seemingly, only reeds player. As far as I noticed they played flute, Bb clarinet, oboe, bass clarinet and potentially bassoon. I may be wrong with some of those but the point is the reeds were incredibly convincing. The tone quality and intonation was superb. The rest of the band sounded great too. The strings sounded incredibly rich and in tune - not one bit of flatness.

I have a lot of praise for the sound techies on the show. The mix was better than some west end shows I’ve seen. What I particularly enjoyed was how I could hear all the “right instruments at the right time”, whether that was a flute solo or a trombone line. It was almost as if instruments were turned up when they were important and if so this was a very good choice - it did the band justice and allowed the subtleties of Jonathan Tunik’s orchestrations to shine. The only time the mix suffered was in “A Weekend in the Country” when all the cast are singing different lines - I’m not really sure what the techies could have done to make it easier to hear each individual line but it did come across as a wall of noise and not a web of interweaving lines. That said I’m just being picky here. Tech were great. I thought the set and lighting were effective and particularly enjoyed when Henrik walked across the stage during his solo in “A Weekend in the Country” and the lights changed colour on each person he passed.

I always find the second half of Sondheim shows can have a slight lull in energy and there seemed to almost be a moment where the energy felt like it came to a standstill but this quickly picked back up. Otherwise the pacing felt great and this was a very worthy production of the show.

Thank you to the RCS for always putting on such quality productions at the fringe and for the team on this show for putting so much care and detail into doing this challenging show correctly.

This exceeded all my expectations, such a talented cast!

Just fantastic.

I love this show so was looking forward to RCS’s production, and I wasn’t disappointed. IMO this is one of Sondheim’s most accessible shows packed with lyrical music, wit and set pieces. The performers were mostly very strong with some standout vocals. I always look forward to the RCS offerings at the Fringe because the band is live and full, as was the case here.
I guess the 10:00am start might put some people off, but it is certainly worth the effort. Go, you won’t be disappointed and will see one of the most professionally produced shows at the Fringe.

A winning show filled with talented actor/singers combined with Sondheim’s witty melodic score. The ensemble creates a fresh, appealing morning of superlative musical theater. Go!

A very charming version of Sondheim's A Little Night Music. Each performer shone very brightly in their roles. I thoroughly enjoyed the servants' judgemental commentary on the upper class, the stunning vocals, and a ravishingly nuanced performance from Anna Toogood as Desiree. Marty Pascall was an amusingly nervous Henrik and Tyler Ramsay was endearing as Fredrika. The band also sounded fantastic accompanying the show. Overall, a very united ensemble piece that brings a Sondheim classic to life on the Fringe stage.

I'll admit that musicals are not my thing, but this show was top-notch and I enjoyed it from beginning to end. I did like the interaction of the staff characters, who make sly comments about all the crap that the main characters get into. The staging was brilliant, and the subtle updates make this 1973 story (which has some cringe elements) easier to swallow. And it's Sondheim, so you know the music is great. This is the kind of production I expect from professionals.

A confident, breezy version of Sondheim's take on Ibsen, performed masterfully by the RCS with particularly strong performances from Frederik, Desiree and Petra.

Sondheim’s musical performed excellently by MA students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Very professional; great voices; good staging.

As ever, the Conservatoire mounts an impressive show - some great voices and excellent acting in a smooth-running musical. It seems there’s a shortage of available men this year, but everyone makes the best of it.

Also, I wonder if there was a costume undelivered - the show is set in Sweden in 1900 but one character is dressed in a very nice ensemble that looks like Sixties Bloomsbury. The incongruity jarred.

Other niggles include what’s referred to as a dinner being staged as a picnic, and the winter wonderland temperature of the Assembly Music Hall.

So far as the staging goes, this is a show without a great book - if you don’t know the basic set-up going in, there’s not much help from Hugh Wheeler’s script. This isn’t the Conservatoire’s fault, but they don’t help matters by having the set identical for all the characters’ homes - I’ve seen the show previously, but it was years again so I spent the first 20 minutes thinking everyone was in the same place, sharing the five hardworking servants.

Overall, this is well worth seeing if you’re a Sondheim fan, but it could do with some tweaking.

Stephen Sondheim’s musical version of a silly French farce performed superbly by a cast from the Musical Theatre class from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Great voices and acting, and a superb live band, spoiled a little by the amplification/accoustics which made it a bit difficult to hear the lyrics.
The RCS always put on a great show and this year is no exception. The clowns were sent in. ****