Bristol Evening Post 28th Oct 2005

STRONG LEADS IN DETECTIVE DRAMA

City of Angels, Keynsham Youth Theatre

It is unlikely that many in the audience at this Keynsham Youth Theatre production will have seen this musical before – it ran briefly in London’s Prince of Wales Theatre 12 years ago and is not a regular even on the amateur circuit.

What is even more certain is that before they started this project few in the young cast would have had experience of the 1940s world of fast-talking private eyes and leggy blondes portrayed in this tribute to the Raymond Chandler/Philip Marlowe genre.

This is a complex story with fiction intertwined with fact, the main characters being Stone, a Los Angeles detective, and Stine, the writer who created him. The author is being bullied by a Hollywood producer to rewrite his book and is unable to resist until his fictional hero comes to his rescue.

The piece needs a pair of strong male leads and it gets them in Tom Coppin as Stone and Jack Smith as Stine, two 17-year-olds who have graduated through the ranks of Keynsham Youth Theatre productions. There is also fine support from Eve Lockett s the alluring Alaura, who hires the gumshoe to find her missing daughter, and Rob Cottrell as the egocentric movie mogul Buddy Fidler.

Andy Hunter leads a strong accompanying band and the hardest working people are the stage hands who have to cope with 31 scene changes!

Rating: 3 stars

Alan King

City of Angels Cast and Crew

PRODUCTION TEAM

Artistic Director - Graeme Savage
Musical Director - Andy Hunter
Choreographer - Sarah Savage
Production Assistant - Hannah Totterdell

Stage Manager - Will Smith
Assistant Stage Manager - Chris Lockett
Lighting Design - Peter Blackmore, Graeme Savage
Lighting Equipment - supplied by Light Options
Wardrobe Mistress - Ruth Cottle
Wardrobe Assistant – Hilary Moore & Jane
Props - Judith Cottrell, Geraldine Silvester
Sound - Ian Fisher for Sum & Difference
Set Construction - Will Smith, Chris Lockett, Rob Silvester, Mel
Set Artist - Lynda Elvin
Stage Crew - Will Smith, Tony Dean, Ray Edwards, Rob Silvester, Mel
Advertising - Tony Brown
Photography - Steven Kemp & Mike Totterdell
Box Office and Programme - Pauline Kemp
Poster and Programme Cover - Rachael Abbott & Graeme Savage
Press and Publicity - Mike Fernott, Graeme Savage
Front of House Manager - Rachael Abbott
Front of House Staff - Tony Brown, Sid Gamblin, Chris Tong, Mike Fernott
Bar Staff -

City of Angels Gallery

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City Of Angels synopsis (song titles in italics)

Stone, a tough private eye in the 1940’s tradition, lies on a hospital trolley with a bullet in his shoulder. To explain how he ended up here, the story flashes back to one week earlier, when his secretary, Oolie, ushered a rich, beautiful socialite, Alaura Kingsley, into his office. Alaura claims she wants Stone to find her missing stepdaughter Mallory (Double Talk). Against his better judgement, Stone accepts the case. As she exits, the scene rewinds, and a man at a typewriter appears on the other side of the stage.

From now on, the stage has two distinct halves – Stage Right is the black and white movie world of Stone, Alaura, Mallory & Oolie. Stage Left is the technicolour real world of Stine & Buddy Fiddler.

The man on the other side of the stage is Stine, author of popular detective novels featuring Stone, and in the process of adapting his book City of Angels into a movie screenplay. Like Stone, Stine has a weakness for women, but fewer scruples when it comes to money. He is working for Buddy Fidler, Hollywood mogul and master puppeteer of creative people (Double Talk 2). In Stine’s hotel room, he argues with his wife, Gabby, who is disappointed that her husband is mutilating his novels, just to put in the changes that will keep Buddy happy. He doesn’t listen though, …
…and neither does Stone, who is being warned about Alaura by the loyal Oolie.
Fiction and reality play out together as Oolie and Gabby sing ‘What You Don’t Know About Women’ at their respective men.

Stone is left alone in his house listening to Jimmy Powers and the Angel City 4 on the radio (You Gotta Look Out For Yourself) when two hoodlums break down the door and beat him up…
…Buddy is reading this scene, dictating changes to his secretary Donna,
who is clearly the model for Oolie (The Buddy System)
Back in the screenplay, Stone is abruptly brought round by Lt. Munoz, Stone’s former partner, who now bears him a major grudge. Stone loved a low-rent lounge singer named Bobbi (based on Gabby) (With Every Breath I Take). But Bobbi wanted stardom more than marriage, and when Stone caught her in bed with a Hollywood producer, tempers flared, a gun went off, and the producer was dead, from a ‘heart attack’. Munoz has never forgiven Stone for getting away with murder, and is looking for a way of getting back at him.

Stone, angry about the beating, confronts Alaura at her mansion, also finding out more about her lustful stepson Peter, her war-profiteer husband, and Dr. Mandril, the spiritualist who attends him. Everyone is stabbing everyone in the back, but Alaura’s charm keep Stone on the case (The Tennis Song). Stone fruitlessly pursues Mallory through the whole of LA (Everybody’s Gotta Be Somewhere), only to find her waiting in his bed (Lost and Found). Stone somehow manages to resist temptation …
…which is more than Stine has managed.
His wife having returned to New York, Stine has taken comfort with Donna, although not without some guilt. But this is Hollywood, where no-one’s motives are pure …

…as Stone finds out when a photographer breaks in and snaps him with Mallory, who runs of with his gun. When the same gun is used to murder Dr. Mandril, Stone finds himself framed for murder, and arrested by the manically gleeful Munoz (All You Have To Do Is Wait).
Stine’s situation is not much better. Buddy has butchered the script, and now even Stone can’t believe the changes his creator has made, and, stepping out of the Black and White movie, challenges Stine to stand up for himself. Stone, utterly depressed, threatens to rub Stone out for good (You’re Nothing Without Me).

ACT TWO
…opens in a recording studio where Jimmy Powers and the Angel City 4, are recording Stay With Me, which becomes the record playing in the bedroom of Carla Haywood, Buddy’s wife, who is about to play Alaura in the movie.
Stone, meanwhile is stuck in jail, with Oolie his only visitor (You Can Always Count On Me). Stone is mysteriously bailed out, but the two hoods catch up with him again, and he only just avoids being blown up.
Stine is lonely at a lavish Hollywood party, full of Buddy’s sycophants, including a Hollywood composer (Alaura’s Theme). He calls home, only to find that Gabby has discovered his affair with Donna. He flies to New York with an elaborately prepared response, but she’s not impressed (It Needs Work).

Stone, fighting to clear his name, ends up in the seedier part of LA (LA Blues), where he is stunned to find Bobbi. We learn that it was she who shot the producer. Stone has been covering for her all along (With Every Breath I Take). Oolie, meanwhile, has made her own discovery – Alaura is a fortune hunter who has already murdered one rich husband and planned to kill Kingsley, once she had got rid of Peter, Mallory and Mandril. Stone confronts her at the mansion, they grapple for her gun. Shots ring out and Alaura falls dead. Stone’s been shot in the shoulder, and we’re back where we started.

But what about Stine? His wife’s rejected him. His lover, Donna, has also been rewriting his script. Stine faces the collapse of his real and fictional worlds, and he’s lost his sense of humour (Funny)
When he arrives on the movie set to see Buddy’s name above his own, and that Jimmy Powers is going to play Stone, his temper boils over. The ‘real’ Stone steps into the real world once more to encourage Stine to rage at Buddy – Stine only succeeds in getting himself fired and is about to be pounded by two security guards. Stone manages to get to Stine’s typewriter just in time to write in Stine’s superhero fighting skills (this is Hollywood after all!), and just for good measure, tacks on a real ‘Hollywood Ending’ in which Gabby returns, forgiving Stine. Together they all celebrate with a reprise of their earlier argument, now positively title ‘I’m nothing Without You’.