Single Review: Last Orders Mersey Square (Barb Jungr)

Barb Jungr is such an inspired singer of the songs of others - bringing fresh energy and new perspectives to material both well and lesser-known - that her own accomplishments as a lyricist are sometimes under-celebrated. In fact, from her earliest Three Courgettes and Jungr and Parker days to her recent successful forays into musical theatre, Jungr has always written - usually in collaboration with other musicians or arrangers. Original compositions have appeared on many of her solo albums, including 2016's Shelter From the Storm, on which self-penned songs sat snugly alongside writing by Dylan, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Springsteen and Bowie. 

Reviewing that record at the time I wondered when Jungr might put "Last Orders Mersey Square" on an album. It's a song I first heard her perform during a gig at Crazy Coqs the previous year. Written with Simon Wallace for the 2012 Stockport to Memphis collection but ultimately not included on the album, the song went straight to the heart in live performance, but no official recorded version has ever been available.

Until now, that is  - it's released as a single this week on 31st October. Following  her second album combining Dylan and Cohen material, Hallelujah on Desolation Row, and her striking version of Jimmy Webb's great "MacArthur Park," this is Jungr's third release this year, and it's a beauty. Recorded at Wallace's studio, with him producing and playing all instruments, the track retains all of the emotion of my memory of the live performance. 

Memory is key to the song itself, in fact. Jungr describes the track as "a love letter to the Stockport I love, the Stockport of old mill towers, canals and famous rivers, of red brick terraces and looming moors." With elegant economy, Jungr's lyrics sketch memories of a youthful love affair in a northern town where "[y]ou could smell the hops across the valley when they brewed the beer" and where "in the pubs we smoked and kissed/We drank our youth like the morning mist." 

There's wry humour in the reminiscence - "For the long and lazy summer we were lovers with no plan/ In the end it rained the rain of ages on our caravan" - but mostly a deep affection and romance, the nostalgic imagery accentuated by the embracing warmth of Jungr's vocal and the tenderness of Wallace's piano-playing which sparkles and shimmers into a gorgeous chorus, where Jungr recalls the ringing of the 'closing time' bell mingling with the "strains of 'Layla' from the jukebox in the smoky air." 

The track conveys a poignant sense of time passing - of the sun setting, of Summer giving way to Autumn - and of youthful experience as fleeting but intense and savoured, the memory of a place indelibly interwoven with the memory of a person. What a treat to finally be able to return again and again to this wonderful song, one of Jungr's very best. 

"Last Orders Mersey Square" is available from 31 October. Link to pre-save here. 

Theatre Review: Mary Page Marlowe (Old Vic)

Scenes from an "ordinary" American woman's life are the thread of Tracy Letts' 2016 play Mary Page Marlowe. The novelty - or gimmick - of the piece is that snapshots of the protagonist's experiences are presented in a fragmented, non-chronological form and that the role of Mary is divided between five (in some productions six) actresses playing the character from ages 12 to 69. (A doll's good enough for a babyhood scene.)

The piece-it-together structure throws out and withholds narrative tidbits - a crime, affairs, alcohol dependency, an absent child - but overall the structure seems more interesting than what's done with it; don't expect the radical transitions of a Palindromes (2004) or an I'm Not There (2007). As a writer, Letts doesn't have the insight or the delicacy to pull off a play like this: he's more at home with bigger gestures and protagonists' spitting vitriol.  There are many plays that have made the details of daily life into something compelling, even monumental, but that's not achieved here, between thinly imagined supporting characters and dialogue that veers between inconsequentiality, belated, heavy-handed symbolism, and spelling out the themes. 

Despite putting the Old Vic stalls in the round again, Matthew Warchus, directing in his usual brisk, slick, proficient style, doesn't bring out much that's distinctive in the material. (Robert Howell's set and costume designs are just functional.) 

Even so, the cast come through to create vivid moments. Letts limits most of the supporting characters to one scene; for actors of the calibre of Hugh Quarshie (playing Mary's third and most satisfactory spouse) and Melanie La Barrie (as a sympathetic nurse), this production must be quite a nice rest. 

But the Marys maximise their opportunities. The sharing out of the role means that there are few chances for grandstanding, but Andrea Riseborough has the toughest emotional moments to play and she's compelling throughout, whether twitchily laying out a separation to Mary's children in the opening scene or sinking under the wreck Mary makes of her life at one stage. 

A minor Matilda: The Musical movie reunion is accomplished with the appearance of Riseborough's co-star from Warchus's film, Alisha Weir, as 12-year-old Mary; the scene is one of the play's weakest ones - it essentially only serves to indict Mary's unsupportive mother for the protagonist's later-life problems - but Weir is perfectly charming in her performance of  "Tammy."

Rosy McEwen also hits the right notes as the adulterous younger Mary, delicately trying to extricate herself from Ronan Raftery's persistent lover (also her boss). And playing Mary across three later-years scenes, it's wonderful - and a bit unexpected - to see Susan Sarandon on the British stage. In many ways, the role doesn't play to Sarandon's greatest strengths: one of the best actors at expressing blazing anger on screen has an essentially quiet, reflective role here. But Sarandon brings a beautiful, unstressed radiance to it; she seems totally at ease, connecting with the other actors in ways that fill out some of the writing's sketchiness. 

Mary Page Marlowe doesn't achieve the depths Letts seems to strive for. In the end, it's a modest work: a woman's life story as a shuffled, tentative impression. It isn't a play to go to with big expectations, but the accomplished cast  - plus a perfect song choice to bookend the evening - still send you out of Warchus's production feeling good. 

Mary Page Marlowe is booking at the Old Vic until 1 November. Further information here.