here are extracts of reviews to show I’ve done good things in collaboration with composers – the first two for The Songbook of Unsingable Songs with Stephen Deazley and then for Rumpelstiltskin with Thomas Hewitt Jones – with a promo trailer for Rumpelstiltiskin made by the team at The Egg
These are juicy, clever, renegade songs that tap into the delights of bizarre imaginings and ricketty-racketty wordplay. Naughty round the edges, with soprano Kimberley Myers voicing adult disapproval in That’s Not the Way, but touching deep into the soul of childhood, as in This Very Very Song. When young Eleanor Kane’s solo voice soared in the reasons for singing, I wasn’t the only one moved to tears. (Star rating: *****) Glasgow Herald
“Everything about it was clever and cutting edge… a most incredible and uplifting event, as though Tom Waits and Stephen Sondheim had come together with Roald Dahl.” Sunday Times Online
Rumpelstiltskin
From What’sOnStage “The first full length Christmas musical is also one of the Egg’s best. ****-
From the outset it is clear that writer Matt Harveyand composer Thomas Hewitt Jones have created one of the best Christmas shows that The Egg has offered in the past few years. Given it’s their first venture into a full length musical, this is a very impressive start.
… Ingenious lyrics, catchy tunes and a naming song that defies some of the best comedy numbers around ensure that even the big kids will be thoroughly entertained.“
From StageTalk Magazine:
“This one was a beauty. Treated as a musical comedy the archetypal nature of the story held together for a wide, contemporary audience themes of threat, loss, heroic quest and triumph over dark magic. … but most of all the quality of the rhyming words and lyrics introduced a level of imaginative stretch that we no longer associate with family entertainment. …It made me want to laugh and scream all at the same time. Delicious.” ★★★★☆ Vicky Vatcher 2/12/14
From Lyn Gardner in the Guardian:
Rumpelstiltskin review – wit, charm and great songs
The Egg, Bath
With a fierce and feisty heroine at its heart, the Grimm fairytale – rarely seen on stage – gets a radical, risk-taking makeover.
“Matt Harvey and Thomas Hewitt Jones have not only taken a story that is seldom staged but they’ve given its heroine agency and they’ve also turned it into a musical, one that is almost sung through and very much driven by the songs. It’s no mean feat. Hewitt Jones’s score has a jaunty charm and Harvey’s lyrics display genuine wit, and it’s good to see the Egg taking a risk on a family show that’s trying to do something different, and which does it in a distinctive, off-the-wall style.“