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Review- Nico Icon Play

November 14, 2008

Date Reviewed: 14th November, 2008
Venue: The Lowry

star

Like the woman who was it’s inspiration, Nico Icon Play is frustratingly inconsistent. Good performances are marred by a poorly dwelivered cameo appearance. Likewise, well-performed musical numbers are undermined by a muddy sound mix and the tone of the show is tentative.

The play takes Nico from her origins as a model /actor and later, singer to her twilight years living in squalor in Salford. The music is played live by the cast which includes Clyve Bonnelle, a gifted actor who can not only maintain credible accents but has a natural air that lends weight to the unconvincing dialogue.

Bonnelle would have made an excellent narrator but instead the producers use a cameo appearance from Arthur Brown to give Nico hints of her future. Perhaps the producers lost faith with their own material and felt that a real live rock star might give the audience value for money. It does not work - as Brown’s  turn is poor and the song he performs feels inappropriate and completely out of context of the scene.

The cast  do very well performing  the music live but the songs in the first act are rendered almost inaudible by a poor sound mix. Stella Grundy, who wrote the play and performs as Nico, coarsens and deepens her voice to produce a convincing approximation of Nico’s flat Teutonic  tones. Her solo performance of “Frozen Warnings” draws applause. Grundy’s script effectively cherry - picks quotes from Nico’s life but, apart from a hint that she may have had a death-wish, does not provideyou with any insight into why Nico fell from grace or whether her work had any artistic merit. Her petulant behaviour seems not so much enigmatic as simply incomprehensible.

The second half of the play could, and perhaps should, be played as a comedy. Set during Nico’s final years it features her ragged band and inefficient manager. Ian Curley, who co-directed, plays Alan Wise as a mixture of public school twit and cheeky chappie. The scenes have a genuine comic element and the ring of truth about them. When Wise uses the euphemism special fuel to tell venues that they need to make drugs available, it results in the band being paid in petrol. Co-director Jo Haydock does not bring out the comedy elements well and, as a result, the audience is left unsure as to how to react.

But the main problem is that the show lacks atmosphere. The need to keep space clear for the musical performances means that the same bare set is used for all scenes and there is no sense of the reported squalor of the squat.  The use  of filmed inserts to move the story along has an alienating effect on the audience who, after all, have come to see a live show.

The talent and passion of the cast save the play from being a total write-off but more care needs to be taken to bring some of its elements up to the standard of the live performances. The producers need to reach a decision as to the type of show that they want to put on, by commiting to a consistent tone and plug the silent gaps between scenes.

As it is Nico Icon Play, like it’s subject, does not fulfil it’s true potential.

-Dave Cunningham

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