Reviews
JULY 14, 2019BY SAMMY STEIN
Charlie Carter – ‘Every Ounce of Love’ (2019)
Charlie Carter has been an actor since he was a child. He has appeared in many successful productions including 90 Minutes, Hollyoaks, Chance Encounters and many more productions. He has worked in theater, TV, commercials and film. As if that is not enough, he is also an accomplished musician and brings to his music the qualities needed for acting – drama, emotion and soul.
Every Ounce of Love is Charlie Carter’s third release. It is a jazz swing/bossa nova studio recording of eight original tracks featuring Sid Gauld (Incognito, George Michael, Brand New heavies and more) on trumpet, vocalists Siubhan Harrison, Odette Adams and Frances Eva Lea (Thumper), Brazilian bossa nova guitarist Rafael Valim (Polkanova, After Hours), Will King on trombone and Charlie Heywood on electric jazz guitar. On piano, Hammond organ, drums, bass and percussion is Garry Meek (D.Reams), who also mixed the album at GMM audio in Crystal Palace. The impressive cover artwork reveals another string to this musician’s bow – it is by Charlie, too.
“This started out a couple of years ago as a four-track EP on the back of my last recording Nothing Short of Love, which was a 10-track album with influences of jazz,” Charlie told me, “and I wanted to go further in with a more wholesome jazz/swing sound. While rehearsing the songs to get studio ready, other stuff was just coming out. So, I ended up getting demos down for eight tracks and was so excited about what was developing I sold most of my worldly belongings to finance it. I wanted to get it out in time for the summer, as it’s got quite a summery sound – which, to me, jazz has in general. There’s a warm, summery feel to jazz/swing that I have always felt connected to.”
The title track for Every Ounce of Love opens the album and begins with a lovely piano line from Gary Meek before it settles into a swingy, gentle rhythm. Charlie Carter then tells us the story of finding love, and giving it your all. He has an engaging voice, with qualities which make it just this side of edgy. The arrangement is colorful, with some great trumpet and guitar lines, over which the vocals emphatically rise and fall.
“I Just Can’t Explain” is more sultry and features the lead vocals of Suibhan Harrison, who brings an emotive, effortless delivery. That’s not surprising, considering she has starred in many West End musical productions. The piano is light and easy on the ears, and the trumpet solo from Sid Gauld is well placed and beautifully delivered. “Something Changed” is sassy, with bossa beats and vocals with an equally beautiful but different quality from Frances Eva Lea. An accompanying accordion is provided by Gary Meek, who is proving himself something of a polymath when it comes to instruments. There is a lovely lilt right through this piece, which is full of movement. The band is tight as a drum.
“Decide” is a tale of adoration, sung with enthusiasm by Charlie Carter over a Latin-esque rhythm which mooches along under the cheekiness of the lyrics, with some great acoustic guitar input from Rafael Valim. “Diamonds and Vagabonds” features Odette Adams on vocals, and here is a bluesy take to this number with a slightly off-kilter rhythm. That slight awkwardness work in perfect contrast to Odette’s smokey, strong and smoothly sung vocals. The lyrics are clearly heard, and this is a darker number with a change of tempo, adding an engaging twist and a delicious trumpet solo.
“Wedding Bells are Gonna Chime” is swingy, brassy, with a trumpet opening and Charlie’s vocals smoothly delivered. The piano line is worth listening out for on this track, as there are some intriguing changes and altered rhythms, aided and abetted by the percussion. “Those Three Little Words” is gentle, smooth and rather lovely, a tale of the ups and downs of love, sung with tuneful emphasis from Charlie Carter. This track swings and is enjoyable from beginning to end, including the beautiful piano interlude before a rhythm change section which then reverts to the swing beat. “Turn Off the News” is simply gorgeous, a track about getting the balance of life right that makes for a thought-provoking ending to Every Ounce of Love.
This is not an album of quixotic changes or demonic delivery. Every Ounce of Love was written from the soul, sung from the heart and delivered with quality. The music comes together to give something enjoyable and engaging. The attention to detail is admirable, which makes it a great listen. It’s an album for the evening, maybe the quiet times and one to listen to many more times than once. After all, Charlie Carter did sell most of his worldly belongings to get the music out here.
Love London Love Culture
REVIEW: Nothing Short of Love by Charlie Carter
Filled with a mixture of fun tracks combined with songs that really hit the heart – this is an album that won’t fail to charm listeners.
This 10 track album created by Charlie Carter has plenty of variety to keep listeners entertained from beginning to end from uptempo numbers such as ‘Been a Pleasure’ and ‘Maybe Baby’ to more heartfelt and sensitive songs such as ‘A Little Room’ and ‘Home is Where the Heart is’.
The album is consistent throughout in terms of the quality of the music and its ability to engage the listener throughout. Meanwhile, the tone of the album is quiet and sensitive – even during the uptempo numbers that can make the album sound lacking in confidence, particularly noticeable on ‘Maybe Baby’ which is catchy and uncomplicated and yet despite the upbeat nature seems to be slightly too relaxed.
‘Soho Rambler’ is a highlight of the album because of its spirited nature and fun lyrics that bring a smile to listeners faces, while capturing the enduring spirit of London. The album is further enhanced by guest performances from Siubhan Harrison, Dami Olukoya and Frances Eva Lea, each adding their own dynamic and personality to the songs. ‘A Little Room’ sung by Siubhan Harrison is particularly heartfelt and enjoyable to listen to.
It would be great to see more changes in pace but the album flows from song to song with incredible smoothness and is well structured to create a story that is engaging throughout.
Overall, Nothing Short of Love is a well constructed album that has plenty of rhythm and jazz elements to make a heartfelt and engaging album.
NO.9 Reviewing the Arts UK wide
Summer, we are told, is here. Despite the disappointing forecasts and the even more disappointing (and wet!) actuality, our minds turn longingly to barbecues in the back garden, parties in the park and other such carefree, dressed-down leisure activities. These things always require a soundtrack and, opportunely, Charlie Carter and friends are on hand to provide one.
In his third album as a leader and principal vocalist, Carter serves up a sunshiney cocktail of optimistic jazz compositions, ably backed by some very charismatic friends - among them Sid Gauld, trumpeter from the long-standing band Incognito, who adds a chirpy accompaniment to the already very chirpy title track. And chripiness is very much the general tone of the album, with the second track Turn Off The News (good advice in these times of ours) being about as close as it gets to the glums. Normal service is restored with Wedding Bells Are Gonna Chime. Carter has a pleasnatly-timbred baritone voice, ideally suited to the laid-back selections presented here.
Vocal guest spots come from Fances Eva Lea on the shimmering Something Changed and Siobhan Harrison on I Just Can’t Explain: Both Lea and Harrison are veterans of the London jazz scene. A third guest is Odette Adams who lends vocals to the John Barryesequ composition Diamonds & Vagabonds. Other guests include acoustic guitarist Rafael Valim, with Will King on trombone and Charlie Heywood on electric guitar.
All in all, this is a very tasty seasonal treat which should make the prefect accompaniment to your summer activities - whether it’s sunny, or not!
Reviewer - Richard Ely
on - 23/6/19
FILM & THEATRE REVIEWS
LOIRE MAGAZINE
May 12, 2020
THE LITTLE GIANT
The word prolific doesn’t do the Mono Media Films crew full justice, really. While some of us stare at a blank computer screen the Mono boys seem to just get on with it. However, not only do they get on it with it but along with this their quality control is bang-on and their latest short film is no exception.
It is the first drama piece from Messrs Cogswell and Baxter and takes its inspiration from their first documentary, ‘A Man in a Hurry’ about the great Tubby Hayes
With a script by celebrated tenor saxophonist and writer Simon Spillett, ‘THE LITTLE GIANT‘ details a few days in the life of Tubby Hayes.
It’s now 1967, and after a number of years of unrivalled success Hayes is now struggling.
Tubby’s life was simply beginning to unravel as modern jazz had been kicked off the top table by a crew of scallywags from Liverpool. Added to this, Tubby’s personal life was in a destructive spiral too. Drink, drugs and a succession of women were all in the mix, whilst he frantically tried to get back to what he once had.
The film documents a week in the life of Tubby and sheds light on his troubles.And while some may find the language a bit juicy this is a hard hitting 12-minute vignette.
Is there more to come? Is this a taster? Let’s hope so because the mood, the acting (that really is Ronnie Scott in there, surely), the script, the score, the nitty gritty and the period-authenticity is all there.
Wonderful stuff…
Details
Tubby – Paul Tadman
Ronnie – Charlie Carter
Doris – Cassandra French
Bob – Alexis Saunders
Based on a script by Simon Spillett
Addition Script by Mark Baxter
Hair & make up by Claudine Rose
Director of Photography – Daniel Thompson
Sound & Edit by Lee Cogswell
Music by Kris Halpin
Producer by Mark Baxter
Director by Lee Cogswell
LONE STAR By James Mclure (Edinburgh Festival)
Listen by Paul Ferguson, Etcetera Theatre
Listen
Etcetera Theatre
25th August 2012
★★★★☆
Coming, as I do, from the north, I am somewhat immune to the 'grim up north' stylings of playwrights such as Jim Cartwright, Willy Russell and John Godber. They have a point to some degree, but don't have a monopoly on working class misery. It's rather refreshing, then, to see a fringe production tackling the disenfranchisement in London, with infinitely more care and attention than, say, EastEnders.
Well, of course that's not what it's all about. Although there's more than a hint of the unholy trinity in Paul Ferguson's script, it's a wonderful, restrained and heartfelt look at one man's native city, adopted father and, unsurprisingly, the need to listen. The skill, care and precision of Ferguson's work is demonstrated best by the brutal, devastating final scene. It's a cliche, but it left few dry eyes in the house and certainly warrants a repeated viewing to see how it all hangs together with the benefit of hindsight. I imagine it would be just as natural the second time around, if not more upsetting. That's not to say it's all bleak, as there are a few laughs to be had and in these, Ferguson deftly uncovers some sweet universal truths to sit alongside the darker elements.
Alex Sycamore does a great job of protagonist Jason. Initially painted with the voice, looks and mannerisms of the stereotypical chav, once you actually begin to listen, he's revealed to be an articulate, thoughtful and likeable guy. Not fussed by ballet, but not all that into football, he takes opportunities to better himself and embrace his cultural heritage.
But it's not just Jason's story. The emotional meat comes from the superb Charlie Carter as Jason's stepdad Alfie. He's truly believable as both the younger version of the character, vital, cheeky, jack-the-lad and the elderly, stuck in a nursing home with an over-talkative nurse (director Charlotte Chinn) as his companion. It's a staggering, clear transformation with the young man still behind the eyes of his shaking, aging present self.
The kitchen-sink action is punctuated with pieces of dance, largely from the skilled Eliza Doyle as Jason's love interest and later wife. But it also provides a powerful symbol for Alfie's earlier days and perhaps his own courtship of lovable, motherly wife Irene (Tina Doyle). Initially, this device is slightly confusing, but taken as a metaphor, the veil is lifted and it latterly becomes wonderfully interwoven with the rest of the narrative.
Miller Productions' show is another gem of the Camden Fringe. It doesn't overstay its welcome, it simply makes its point and leaves. But the point it makes is an honest one worth listening to, and it's made deftly, with bags of beauty and grace.
Listen By Paul Ferguson, Etcetera Theatre
Review By Carmel Shortall
Listen is a tender and affecting family drama; a slice of working class life written by Paul Ferguson and staged by Miller Theatre Productions. The play explores the bonds between children and parents, particularly that between father and son and, as such, it is a return to the world of Miller, an earlier play by Ferguson.
Listen opens in a back garden: Alfie sits in his chair beside a flower pot full of fag-ends while Irene takes in the washing. Neither will answer the phone. Before long they are chasing each other round the garden giggling and about to head to the bedroom when the phone rings again. Alfie answers and we hear, “What’s he done this time?”
On the other side of the stage, a young man in a Fulham shirt stands listening to the traffic. This is Jason, the subject of the telephone call, as an adult.
Sarah, a nurse leads an older Alfie, now in a home, to his seat on the other side of the stage. He sits listening to her chatter. We go back and forth in time and place while Jason grows up, meets someone, starts a family and Alfie sits remembering his Irene.
From young Jay, later Jason – both in Fulham shirts – we learn that Alfie is his stepdad but “he is my dad,” Jason realises fiercely. He visits Alfie and tells him about his life. Alfie wishes he could stay longer and not hurry off. These scenes are poignant and tender – all the more so when we realise that they are not talking at cross-purposes at all…
“All you got to do is listen. Listen with your head and your heart.”
Listen mixes dance, movement, music and drama as well as imaginative use of props to tell the story of an ordinary family. Only Jason inhabits the entire stage, in front of a graffiti-scrawled wall, at home as a boy, with his father in the old people’s home and even ascending the steps beside the audience to tell us his thoughts. Director Charlotte Chinn keeps the emphasis on the central characters, allowing Alex Sycamore as Jason and Charlie Carter as Alfie to build a relationship in stages throughout the play. Both are excellent but Charlie Carter deserves special mention for his sensitive and restrained portrayal of Alfie as an old man, conjured up with only a palsied hand as he sits with his memories. (I may have had a tear in my eye as I left the Etcetera.)
Charlotte Chinn also plays chatty and cheerful nurse, Sarah, while different generations of the Doyle family – Tina, Sam and Eliza Doyle play Irene, Jay and Jason’s wife respectively.
Reviews across the UK and Ireland
TALENT To 6 April 2008.
London.
TALENT
by Victoria Wood
Upstairs at the Gatehouse, Highgate Village N6 4BD To 6 April 2008.
Tue-Sat 8pm Mat Sun 4pm.
Runs 1hr 50min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 8340 3488.
www.upstairsatthegatehouse.com
Review: Geoff Ambler 11 March 2008.
Expect lots of laughs, great Wood music, a hat- ful of wee and some inspired Bingo.
Written in the early years of Victoria Wood’s career, Talent already displays her style, while Maureen is a character written and performed with her particular humour.
Set in the backroom of a nightspot during a talent contest, the story follows two friends, Julie (Stephanie Briggs), a pretty blonde office girl with singer aspirations, hoping to be noticed after winning the competition. And Vikki Stone’s Maureen, her put-upon larger friend, along for support, fetching drinks and carrying the bags. Talent is a wonderfully observed piece of writing, interspersed with Wood’s wit-filled musical numbers.
Stone, an accomplished young comedian, is a marvel in the role created by Victoria Wood and while watching her Maureen you see and hear Wood, and gain an understanding of the wisdom of a girl generally overlooked on the periphery of life, but with a strong sense of fun and a grasp of realities. Stone gains sympathy, as is apparent at the end of the evening when she decides to get her tissues ready and the audience scream No!
Briggs gives Julie both blond naiveté and a nervous self belief, dreaming of using her never-seen talents to lift herself out of the drudgery of life. Wood’s observations are as relevant today as they were thirty years ago when Opportunity Knocks was the X-Factor of the seventies. The celebrity-obsessed world we live in is still populated by Julies.
The other contestants we see are a marvellous pairing of magician and assistant in the form of Harry Dickman and John Walters, as George and Arthur, two aged friends with many wonderful comedy moments and more indication of the Talent Wood alludes to. Charlie Carter plays the evening’s remaining parts of Mel and the Compere and it’s as the Compere that he steals scenes, introducing both the casting couch for Julie and the front seat of his Cortina for Maureen.
Talent is rarely revived and it’s a marvel to watch one of Wood’s early works, brought to life by director John Plews who again makes The Gatehouse one of the best reasons to leave the beaten track and visit the Fringe.
Maureen: Vikki Stone.
Julie: Stephanie Briggs.
Mel/Max: Charlie Carter.
George: Henry Dickman.
Arthur: John Walters.
Director: John Plews.
Designer: Mike Lees.
Lighting: Howard Hudson.
Musical Director: Vikki Stone.
Choreographer: Racky Plews.
Talent By Victoria Wood
Ben Crain, Camden New Journal
TALENT, Victoria Wood’s first play, is the comedienne’s take on a familiar yet compelling story.
It’s the night of a talent contest. Julie (Stephanie Briggs), office worker and aspiring singer, arrives in her dressing room. She informs her assistant, the overeating mate from school, Maureen (Vikki Stone), that she’ll do anything to make it to the top. As the evening wears on, however, her dreams soon wear off.
Set in the north of England in 1978, it’s a very English loss of innocence.
Ashtrays overflow and cigarette butts litter the floor. They can’t find the toilet, so Julie pees in a showbiz bowler hat.
They are pestered by a comedy-magic act, amateur pensioners George and Arthur (Harry Dickman and John Walters) who remind Julie quite how far away from fame she is. However, it is when she meets Mel, the organist, and the compulsively lecherous compere (both played by Charlie Carter) that she receives her true education in the sordid realities of show business.
John Plews’s well-crafted production is breezy and fun, only let down by a whimsical, drama-sparse plot. The play functions more like a showbiz revue: a series of stand-up jokes interspersed with songs, and a live bingo game with the audience after the interval. Some of the humour has dated over the years.
But when Talent works it sings. Walters and Dickman have some great moments, and Stone and Briggs do an admirable job with a dense script. The songs are beautifully executed and, juxtaposed with the naffness of the characters’ lives, they add a dose of genuine pathos.
This is a show less about succeeding at all costs and more about the comic sadness of growing-up. If you’re a fan of Wood, or a more contemporary equivalent, Peter Kay, it’s well worth checking out.
Talent By Victoria Wood
Jack Courtney O'Connor, Morning Star
Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London N6
“I HAVEN’T been as nervous since I played the Virgin Mary,” says Julie (Stephanie Briggs). She’s an aspiring singing star in a northern England seedy amateur talent contest in the late 1970s. “That’s going back a bit,” retorts Maureen (Vikki Stone), her long-suffering assistant.Comedian Victoria Wood, the play’s author, knows a thing or two about talent shows. She got her first break after winning the ITV show New Faces at just 20 years of age.
John Plews’s well-staged and extremely well-executed production drifts at times due to the lack of dramatic content in the writing. It has a rather thin plot. Office worker Julie is desperate to win the talent spot, hoping to be discovered and thus give up her boring day job. However, when she realises that the contest is fixed and that she is required to display her goods via the casting couch, she becomes disillusioned and rebels. The banter between Julie and Maureen is occasionally hilarious. Maureen is a curious mix of innocence and knowingness and one can see the germ of the Victoria Wood/Julie Walters double act. They are interrupted on occasion by comedy magic act “George and Arthur” (Harry Dickman and John Waters), who are brought on to “entertain the troops.”
The lecherous compere Max and organist Mel are both well-performed by Charlie Carter and the songs are expertly handled. At times, the production is more like a revue with songs and routines and its antithesis would be Trevor Griffith’s hard-hitting piece The Comedians, also written in the 1970s.
Perhaps this piece should be entered in the BBC White Working Class season as it can now be seen with sad irony as a chronicle of the loss of a Northern proletarian culture.
Proud By John Stanley, The Lost Theatre
How much is gold really worth? In this story of a young man preparing for an Olympic victory, national pride is pitched against personal anxieties as a teen struggles to balance the testosterone-soaked world of boxing with his identity as a gay man.
Lewis has just turned 18 and, to celebrate, his mum has arranged a dinner party. Of course, this being theatre, “dinner party” is code for social awkwardness, faux pas and full-blown disagreements; a setting that allows for an analysis of major social patterns on an intimate level. Proud follows the menu in style, serving up all the veiled fights and bitter undercurrents that we expect as soon as we see a kitchen table on a stage.
After a string of light-hearted battles over who is responsible for the ironing, and a handful of fights regarding what makes an appropriate fashion choice, the real antagonist enters the stage. Sleazy Mac is dating Lewis’ mum. His is an influence that polarises the genders, forcing mum to dress in a gold dress and high shoes and — as Lewis’ gym coach — urging the young man to adopt laddish mannerisms. Significantly, the brashly opinionated and homophobic Mac doesn’t know that his student is gay, an error that Lewis seems in no hurry to correct.
Charlie Carter is excellent as the homophobic boxing coach who struggles to leave the macho talk of the gym behind. As he dishes up homophobia before the aperitif, his leery sentences are punctuated by licks of his lips, an effective and subtle tick that reinforces his character’s arrogance. Mac stands for more than just one idiot; this man comes from a place where male affection and support can only be shown through a punch and an assertive comment directed at the whole room. He represents a larger picture: the macho world forcing the gay teenager to live a double life.
That said, it’s a real shame that the production has to rely on such heterosexual clichés to counter the prejudices suffered by the gay community. Indeed, there is something hypocritical in the company’s decision to fight stereotyping with stereotypes. It’s also very disappointing to see that, in the character Ally, John Stanley has scripted yet another sarcastic and marginalised lesbian who, when the play finishes, is still waiting for her happy ending.
Performed to a predominantly gay audience, this production doesn’t waste time trying to be politically correct and elephants are kept firmly out of the room by mum Rachel (Virginia Byron), who swiftly swings from naive and unwittingly suggestive to ultra-camp. The play discusses issues relating to gay culture — from Lady Gaga to the Soho nail bomber — but its most interesting moment occurs when Lewis expresses his reluctance to subscribe to a world of rainbows and speeches, claiming that “all that out and proud stuff isn’t me”. With all its flaws, this production may be more deserving of a bronze than of a gold, but as the lead character finally accepts a sexuality without a stereotype, we know we’re onto a winner.
Proud By John Stanley, The Lost Theatre
In an ordinary dining room, probably in a small town in Essex still linked to the East End of London culturally and socially, an 18 year-old boxer is celebrating his birthday and training for the Olympic trials. His mother and sister bicker as guests arrive and the lamb chars in the oven. So far, so what? And things could have stayed that way had the boxer not been gay.
Proud (at The Lost Theatre until 11 August) has many of the elements of a traditional farce and just a touch of the 21st century "issue-led" soap opera too. As Lewis, Parry Glasspool does the comic stuff well and looks the part, but betrays his youthful inexperience in more tender moments with his older boyfriend Tom (Matthew Hebden). Circling this odd couple as drinks and an Iceland King Prawn starter are consumed with enthusiasm and reluctance respectively, are Lewis’ sister (Ellie Sussams), all push-up bra and post-teenage angst; Ally (Claire Huskisson) Tom’s neurotic gay flatmate who takes a shine to Colleen; and Mac (Charlie Carter) Lewis’ old school boxing trainer and surrogate father, whose grip on his protégé is slipping. Holding it all together (the party and the play) is Rachel, Lewis’ long-suffering mother, a woman not burdened with self-awareness and splendidly played by Virginia Byron, cracking the one liners like Naseem Hamed cracked heads.
It would be easy to say that Proud has more holes in its plot than there are in Audley Harrison’s record and that fewer homilies from Mac and more byplay between Ally and Colleen would have been welcome, but that would be to concentrate on its shortcomings . In its favour, John Stanley has written a situation comedy centred on a member of a community as good as invisible at The Greatest Show On Earth. There’s wit, wisdom and sensitivity between the punchlines and punch lines, as we find out that Lewis wants it all. And that he can have it all too – straight or gay.