Theatre
Naima Khan
This stage adaptation of Danny Robins' Radio 4 drama is a feel-good show packed with snappy one-liners from a gaggle of intelligently drawn characters. Its roots in radio are evident, to be sure: the action develops significantly at 30-minute intervals with as many jokes crammed in as possible. On the upside, the story of a failing record store and its feckless owner comes with a host of infectious tunes and a seductively atmospheric score. The writing even careers through some keen observations about the emotional consequences of social mobility, happily staying light-hearted all the while. Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
Rona Munro’s trilogy of plays about Scotland’s Stuart kings premiered at the Edinburgh Festival when Scottish independence was, for many, still a cherished possibility; it transfers to London – within a clarion call of Westminster – just as the promise has been dashed. As timely as the National’s recent Great Britain, the trilogy is more than merely opportune, resonating with the anger and frustration of centuries.These boisterous, bracing, subtly thought-provoking and hugely entertaining plays are also a rarity in offering a new history cycle to accompany those of Shakespeare. While the Read more ...
Caroline Crampton
As we arrive at the last few months of 2014, the temptation to say “Enough! No more!” to representations of the First World War creeps in. The centenary of 1914 has been so comprehensively commemorated on our stages and screens that you could be forgiven for feeling as if you had little left to understand about what went on. But don’t put it all behind you quite yet – this rediscovery from the 1930s still has something to offer in an overcrowded space.John Van Druten’s Flowers of the Forest was first performed 80 years ago, at a time when the playwright was a prominent feature of the London Read more ...
aleks.sierz
In the context of recent events in Iraq and Syria, the spectre of the ill-fated Iraq War of 2003 looms large once more. What better time for a revival of master-playwright David Hare’s story about conflict and personal relationships? As parliament is recalled to debate bombing the Islamic State, The Vertical Hour — which premiered on Broadway in 2006 and was then staged at the Royal Court two years later — opens at the smart Park Theatre in London’s Finsbury Park. But just how relevant is it?Like most of Hare’s work, this is a play in which the personal is in bed with the political. Nadia, Read more ...
Marianka Swain
The news cycle waits for no man. When Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky’s thinly veiled Boris Johnson satire premiered in Edinburgh at the beginning of August, it seemed remarkably timely, coinciding as it did with BoJo announcing his intention to return to Parliament. Now, it’s at best reactive, and competing with a sea of far more penetrating editorials about the likelihood and reality of everyone’s favourite accident-prone chap actually running the country. Kingmaker is still atop its soapbox, but frantically and fatally jockeying for position.Khan and Salinsky’s central argument, conveyed in a Read more ...
fisun.guner
So, Exhibit B, the controversial “human zoo” using black actors to re-enact the role of ethnographic exhibits – semi-naked, chained, silenced by metal masks and degraded in metal collars – has been cancelled, due to the presence of protesters. The piece, a series of tableaux vivants recreating the human zoos popular in Europe and America in the 19th and even the first decades of the 20th century, is a work by white South African artist and theatre-maker Brett Bailey, and was being staged by the Barbican. Most recently it had been seen at the Edinburgh Festival, where the reaction Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Currently, the Royal Court is exploring the theme of revolution and resistance. In its studio space it is staging The Wolf from the Door, Rory Mullarkey’s excellent absurdist fantasy of a very English uprising. And now on its main stage is Tim Price’s fictional account of how Anonymous and LulzSec, a collective swarm of hacktivists, took on some of the most powerful capitalists in the world without even leaving their bedrooms. If this was revolution, or even just resistance, it was a very nerdy kind of activism.Teh Internet Is Serious Business starts by introducing Jake and Mustafa, two Read more ...
Naima Khan
Performed by a cast of ten actor-musicians, Derek Bond's take on Shakespeare's comedy of gender-reversal and the constancy (or not) of love is melodic, quirky and at its absolute best when it loses all sense of seriousness. It takes a while to get there given the Bard's finicky set-up, but Bond delights throughout in the characters' foibles and sense of rebellion and he fearlessly works the audience into the show - which, presumably, is as they like it.Brothers Orlando and Oliver fight over their inheritance while cousins Rosalind and Celia look on. Rosalind and Orlando before long fall for Read more ...
Marianka Swain
Like their divisive protagonist, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice could reasonably be accused of valuing style over substance: indelible extravaganza Evita subscribes to the cult of celebrity without truly interrogating it, nor are we given enough dramatised information to make a real judgement about a woman equally lauded and vilified. Bill Kenwright and Bob Tomson don't address these failings so much as largely distract from them in their marvellously fluid revival, aided by Matthew Wright’s mobile set and Bill Deamer’s fiery, flamenco-heavy choreography. This may not be the definitive Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Opening on the day after the Scottish Referendum, Chris Thompson’s new play has a timely, even incendiary, title. It also recalls the sad little song ‘Albion’ by Pete Doherty and Babyshambles. This time, however, The Albion is the name of an East End pub which is the home of the English Protection Army, a far-right outfit that is both stupid and more than a touch sinister. If these groups weren’t currently on the rise, cashing in on public disquiet about militant Islamism, it would be much easier to dismiss their Neanderthal posturing.But this lot are in trouble. The EPA’s leader, Paul, wants Read more ...
philip radcliffe
Instead of that small well-worn stone balcony in that courtyard in Verona, picture an extended well-worn cast-iron balcony in the Victoria Baths in Manchester. The young lovers have ample room to move in the labyrinthine interior of the old building, with its three disused tiled swimming pools and ecclesiastical stained glass windows. Romeo is the length of a cricket pitch away as he addresses Juliet on the balcony and, for some reason, is moved to do a take on “Love Me Do”.The old changing cubicles are still there, crumbling away, but providing hidey-holes for the warring gangs of Montagues Read more ...
aleks.sierz
The number of plays commemorating the outbreak of the First World War continues to grow, with some already falling casualty to critical fire or to rapidly waning audience interest. Taking the field rather late in the day, and putting his head above the parapet this week is veteran playwright Howard Brenton, who has had enormous success at this venue with the much-revived Anne Boleyn. His take on the subject of the Great War is a beautifully eccentric one, and tells the story of one man’s war against war.The story focuses on 19-year-old Jack Twigg, an Oxford student from a humble background Read more ...