Review: THE RINSE CYCLE, Charing Cross Theatre, February 19 2016
By: Gary Naylor Feb. 20, 2016
Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle is known even to non-fans of opera for its length (about 16 hours) and iconic Ride of the Valkyries music, done by just about everyone from Bugs Bunny to Francis Ford Coppola. Except that we don't really know it do we?
Unexpected Opera's The Rinse Cycle (at the Charing Cross Theatre until 12 March) fills that hole in your knowledge with a run through the cycle's four operas' storylines, selected musical interludes and a backstage bitchfest that gets plenty of laughs - though that might depend on whether you giggle at a sign declaring a cake shop's name as Patisserie Valkyrie (I did!)
The cast have a lot of fun and sing well - though they need to in order to reach the back of this long, narrow space. Simon Thorpe is our main narrator and takes the baritone roles somewhat reluctantly, preferring to flirt with Mari Wyn Williams, whose Brunhilde is plenty big enough to fill the theatre with sound and vision! Harriet Williams has a lot of fun as a dryly sarcastic wife who sings the mezzo parts and Anna Gregory (especially in a ludicrous outfit) and Edward Hughes get the most laughs, one a little too angry, the other a little too dim.
It's all quite amusing, but it's just a bit too ambitious. Wagner's epic work is hard enough to explain without the added complication of the backstage shenanigans including some inexplicable shifts in accents. The singing - though thrilling to hear - isn't always fully intelligible, so it's hard to work out who is doing what to whom and why after a song. I'm not convinced that a panto singalong worked as a finale either.
It'll certainly help to have seen this show when I eventually dip my toe into the Wagnerian canon, but, for all its laudable intentions, The Rinse Cycle probably falls between two stools. It's too jokey and simple for those familiar with the work and too choppy and complex for those who are not. Perhaps starting with Mozart and working up to Wagner would have helped.
Photo Robert Workman
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