Regents Park, the sights and sounds of the open air theatre, a night to remember On the Town.
There can have been few evenings or nights quite like this one. Surrounded by some of London's finest and lushest parkland, we settled in our seats and soaked up the atmosphere. This had been one of my first visits to an open air theatre and it wasn't disappointing. In fact by the end of the evening I had been both enthralled and overcome with emotion.
It was the Regents Park Open Air Theatre and it was quite the most scenic setting I'd ever experienced for any show or event in London, a picturesque jewel in the heart of the capital, a delicious slice of the country in the middle of the West End. I've walked through and passed Regents Park on a number of occasions and, rather like Hyde and St. James's Park its neighbours, there is a breathtaking romanticism and beauty about Regents Park that never fails to enchant.
As you head towards Regents Park you suddenly become aware that this is the heart of London's wealthiest elite. Everywhere there is a Georgian elegance that is wonderfully timeless, rows and rows of white stucco houses with stern pillars and columns, stately cream coloured homes with regal balconies and formidable windows. This is London at her most traditional and respectable, London at her most well off with a couple of million in the bank and untouched by the decades and generations.
And then you notice the street lamps on the road leading into Regents Park. Now it has to be said that these are pretty special street lamps. These lantern street lamps have probably been where they are at the moment since the very early days of Queen Victoria's reign. My wife, daughter- and father- in law came out of the theatre at the end of our West End musical and I couldn't help but notice the street lamps in orderly and regimented lines, a distant throwback to the days when Charles Dickens must have doing all of his extensive research for those glorious novels. In fact for a moment I tried to imagine what it must have been like for Dickens in those far off Victorian days.
Anyway we were all here to see an old film musical called On the Town which starred the fleet footed, twinkle toed Gene Kelly and Old Blue Eyes himself Frank Sinatra, Now since this was my first time in an open air theatre I wasn't sure what to expect. But here I was slap bang in the middle of those rich acres of greenery and stunning scenery. We all felt at one with nature and you felt as though you were profoundly connected to its seductive charms.
My only other al fresco musical concert had taken place over 30 years ago at the wonderful Kenwood House in Hampstead and that had to be the most memorable of all occasions. In fact I did it all over again a couple of years later and that night I was serenaded by classic movie themes from an orchestra. Oh to be a part of an evening that gave us the Magnificent Seven, the Bond movie theme, the Dambusters, classic British TV series and sitcoms. Truly uplifting. I'll never forget that carpet of rugs on the grass, the middle and upper classes sprawled out ostentatiously with their hampers and picnics, their delightful selection of French bread sticks, bottles of bubbly, champagne overflowing by the bucketload and that re-assuring air of, quite possibly, snobbery and evident style. It was England being English and Londoners living in London. Unquestionably so.
But here we all were in the middle of a London park in an open air theatre that reminded you of a mini amphitheatre, a bowl shaped auditorium with tiers of seats that seemed to wrap around in a kind of semi circle. For a moment I was reminded of a bullfighting arena where the great matadors and toreadors engage and tease that poor, unsuspecting bull in some brutal and bloodthirsty confrontation.
And yet this was entirely different, remarkably different. This was a West End musical in the middle of a beautiful park. At frequent points throughout the performance, I looked around at the towering trees thick and heavy with foliage and gorgeous green leaves. What must they have been feeling or thinking? What goes through the mind of a Regents Park tree when the music strikes up and the band plays and the soft, melodious notes drift into the still early evening sky?
Then it hit me. The dawning realisation and revelation. The trees overlooking the stage were listening and watching On the Town, perhaps studying and analysing the evening, carefully observing human behaviour, keeping an eagle eye out for anything out of the ordinary, monitoring and scrutinising the whole show, just drinking it all in, absorbing the sounds and the acoustics in case it was too loud for them.
Shortly, above all of the showbiz razzamatazz and pizzazz of the music itself I heard that unmistakable twittering of birds in the background. Now how topical and relevant is that in these social media friendly times. Yes everywhere there was birdsong in these late days of Spring, shrill, staccato whistling and calling, flirting and tuneful birds from way up high in that huge green canopy of London's Regents Park.
For what seemed an indefinite period of time the memories of Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly were wonderfully resurrected and the birds loved it, Throughout the whole of On the Town London's bird population had done us proud. It almost seemed as though both blackbird, chaffinch, magpie and crow alike had made a determined effort to join in with this mellifluous wall of music and sound.
On stage of course On The Town, the musical was quite extraordinary, a brilliant stage adaptation of a film that captured the hearts of the Hollywood set back in the 1950s when stars were stars and Sinatra was in his vocal pomp. It tells the story of three American sailors singing and dancing their way into the hearts of singing and dancing girls. Dressed in whiter than white naval suits, our three sailors launch into an energetic chorus of sing along chat up lines, jumping and skipping across tables and chairs with that overflowing enthusiasm that gets you right there.
We then witness quite the most astonishing sight, a yellow New York taxi cab, the rusty frame of a very old New York taxi, hurtling and careering sharply around corners and back streets with a feverish fervour. Then a passionate girl throws herself quite unashamedly at one of the aforementioned sailors with lustful clinches and a real determination to get her guy. It is all very dizzy and heady, a giddy and light headed musical that never pauses for breath or re-charges its batteries for it is quite clearly electrifying and mind blowingly terrific.
Before the performance itself I did take some brief mental notes of the open air theatre audience and the moments just before On The Town lit up their lives. There went the open air public gently walking up the steps and the rows of seats with amber coloured glasses of lager in their hands, in some cases colourful Pimms with ice in their glass or fizzy white wine that smacked of the middle classes. Nobody was in a hurry to go anywhere and you began to think that the people who come to Regents Park open air theatre know exactly how to behave on sultry summer evenings.
All around me was that sense of order and tranquillity that seems to come quite naturally to London's al fresco theatre land. Then I heard the rustling and whispering of the trees, the cooing and cawing of the blackbirds with their shrewd and discerning air. It was all just perfect in the way it's always been and always will be.
On stage, rusty, dark brown buildings with what looked like New York warehouses illustrated perfectly the landscape of New York during the 1950s. And then the show really took off, exploding into a dazzling cavalcade of dancing and more dancing, operatic singing at its best, guys and girls swinging each other over each others shoulders in a dizzying and delirious delight, shaking their hips, somersaulting, spinning on dainty toes, flinging their bodies into the air with all the dynamism of teenagers and then in the second half there was something totally surprising.
For what seemed a blissful period of time, On the Town indulged itself in the rarefied world of ballet. It was ballet in the middle of a showbiz West End musical and for a minute or two it seemed unrelated to what I had just seen. But this was ballet on the most spectacular scale. It was ballet that should have graced the magnificent Sadlers Wells, the home of English ballet in the middle of London. And yet here it was in the middle of a Hollywood film adaptation, beautifully rehearsed and choreographed. The timing was impeccable, the movements almost perfectly synchronised, feet nimble, bodies supple and flexible. What a show, what a performance!
Then we remembered the film adaptation and the sheer joyousness of it all. We thought of Frank Sinatra now loved and adored by millions of palpitating American females, blue eyes wide and fluttering lashes. Then there was Gene Kelly who would twirl himself around a street of lamp- posts before getting soaked by rain. It was hard to remember just how vivacious and vibrant Hollywood was at the time and still is to a large extent.
I couldn't help but notice the composer of On The Town, one Leonard Bernstein, the musical maestro behind my favourite film of all time West Side Story. There were very distinctive echoes and shades of the great Bernstein in On the Town. There was that very jazzy, orchestral Bernstein sound that drifted elegantly across Regents Park. It was a mean, moody and menacing score that had the composer's trademark all over it. I was just uplifted by it all.
Still this was my evening and an evening that linger forever in the mind and heart. Darkness fell across Regents Park almost unfussily and discreetly, the fading evening light now just an early evening memory. I looked up inquiringly at those trees once again and found, much to my delight, that even the trees had caught the mood of the evening. The lights from the stage were now decorating the trees with a multi patterned light show. The birds were now back at their nest sleeping quarters and Londoners made their way home in the most polite fashion. On the Town had painted the whole of London town red. Some of us wanted to believe that the painting had been completed with the finest brush. Well done Regents Park open air theatre. You were great.
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