Theatre
sheila.johnston
Blithe Spirit was born in the shadow of the Blitz: Noël Coward, whose London home had just been bombed, wrote it in Portmeirion, Wales, in 1941 over a brisk six days. But the evil Hun never once puts in an appearance (over breakfast, the characters briefly wonder whether there's anything of note in the morning's Times; of course, there is not). Another, more complicated war is being waged here: the battle of the sexes.Charles Condomine is a Home Counties writer who invites the flamboyant local psychic Madame Arcati to dinner, hoping her antics will amuse his smug guests and supply a few jokes Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Recently, some British playwrights have gone back to school, and found that it feels very much like a war zone. All the old tensions between teachers and pupils have escalated into open conflict: knives are drawn, punches thrown and arguments are settled by fights. Likewise, the language is disrespectful at best, and always expletive-heavy. Vivienne Franzmann’s new play, which visits London after opening in Manchester last month, frankly refers to a war zone in its title, and its action is scarcely less antagonistic.Like John Donnelly’s The Knowledge and Steve Waters’s Little Platoons, Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Dave is a bomb, waiting to go off. He’s dangerous because he seems so ordinary. Late-twenties, he’s nothing much to look at. He wears a suit. Works as a civil servant in some absurdly obscure government department. No girlfriend. If truth be told, a bit of a piss-head really. But the thing that makes him dangerous is that - as the title of DC Moore’s 2010 play makes clear - he fancies himself as a truth-teller. He’s painfully honest, and, worse, he uses honesty as a weapon. So when you meet him in a pub, watch out.But first you have to find the pub (it's a site-specific show, after all). The Read more ...
Sam Marlowe
If it only had a heart. Animal cruelty, a sadistic green-faced witch, flying monkeys: L Frank Baum’s story, which spawned the MGM movie that made Judy Garland a star, is downright grotesque. And when it’s not unsettling you with its rusty Tin Man, straw-brained Scarecrow and camp Cowardly Lion, it’s making you gag on its sickly platitudes about best friends, family and finding your heart’s desire in your own backyard.For all that, The Wizard of Oz seems to be perennially popular – so much so that it also inspired the monster-hit musical Wicked. And if anything was going to get the box-office Read more ...
joe.muggs
As acting challenges go it borders on the foolhardy: impersonate not just in looks and mannerisms but in musical skill too some of the most truly iconic figures of the 20th century. And do it up close and personal with an audience who know the subjects' work inside out to boot. It seems almost impossible that a cast could manage to convincingly portray the (real) musical meeting of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins at Sam Phillips's Sun Studios in 1956, but Million Dollar Quartet has managed successful and continuing runs in Chicago and on Broadway, so they must be Read more ...
aleks.sierz
At the moment, most of the energy in British new writing seems to be coming from American and Irish playwrights. This is such a regular phenomenon, one that comes around every few years, that it seems idle to speculate on the reasons for it; surely, it’s enough to welcome another new talent from Ireland? As well as being the artistic director of Tall Tales theatre company, Deirdre Kinahan is a prolific playwright. Her UK debut, Moment, opened last night at the Bush Theatre in west London, and is an engrossing study of a dysfunctional family.Of all the ordeals of modern life, bringing home Read more ...
Veronica Lee
There’s a fascinating programme note for this production of Drowning on Dry Land, taken from an interview given by its author for the play's premiere at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Back in 2004, Alan Ayckbourn told The Yorkshire Evening Press: "There will be a day not long ahead when everyone will have their own website with pictures that say, 'Here’s me in the bath'."It was also in 2004 that Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard colleagues were inventing a little something called Facebook, the subject of the Oscar-winning The Social Network. And so Drowning on Dry Land may appear to Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Best sit upstairs in the Rose for their new As You Like It, Stephen Unwin's first Shakespeare production in the three-year-old theatre, modelled on the Elizabethan principle. The tilted perspective helps a great deal with the sparse little bit of scenery. From the ground stalls the hummock of leaf-strewn earth and the three oak branches hanging overhead seriously lack the forcefield of a Forest of Arden, hemmed in with black unadorned walls and exit doors.Shakespeare’s Arden should be a surreal place, where people lose their court inhibitions, where they’re far from hot water and clean Read more ...
aleks.sierz
In contemporary British drama, kids are usually either suffering or doomed innocents. But Winterlong's Oscar is different. He is a loner who was abandoned by his schoolgirl mum and his scary dad at the age of four years old, and tries to make his way in a chilly world armed only with his small but powerful reserves of love. The writing throbs like an infected wound, so you can see why actor Andrew Sheridan’s debut play was joint winner of the 2008 Bruntwood Prize for playwriting, receiving its premiere at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester earlier this month, and now visiting the Soho Read more ...
Sam Marlowe
Like the misbegotten monster at its heart, this stage version of Mary Shelley’s seminal novel is stitched together from a number of discrete parts; and though some of the pieces are in themselves extremely handsome, you can all too clearly see the joins. Here’s a bit of half-baked dance theatre, there a scene of simple, touching humanity. And for each dollop of broad ensemble posturing, there’s a visually stunning scenic effect. In the midst of it all are two excellent performances by Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, who alternate in the roles of vauntingly ambitious Read more ...
graham.rickson
The clipped Fifties accents raise a smile for the first few minutes, but what’s startling about this new production of Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play is how universal, how timeless the story is. Director Sarah Esdaile wisely decides to play things respectfully straight, and within seconds the time and place, both beautifully evoked in Ruari Murchison’s detailed set, melted into irrelevance. Maxine Peake plays Hester Collyer, attempting suicide after her boyfriend Freddie has forgotten her birthday. After her life is saved by the enigmatic fellow tenant Mr Miller, her back story is slowly Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Just in time to capitalise - is that how that word is spelled? - on awards season, along comes the latest Broadway-to-Britain transplant, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a musical all about a culture that likes to win, win, WIN! Does William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin's surprise 2005 New York hit go to the top of the London class? Intermittently, yes. Charming and cheeky at its best, repetitive and sentimental elsewhere, the piece may simply be too echt-American to repeat its success here, though it certainly marks a change at the Donmar from the daunting fare this playhouse Read more ...