A life of hope and promise, interrupted, lies at the heart of Mr Jones: an Aberfan Story. The play follows two young people in Aberfan before and after the disaster that killed 144 people, including 116 children. It’s an emotional coming-of-age tale of intersecting lives, family, love, and the shock of tragedy. With two vivid performances and strong characterisations, you feel immersed in 1960s Welsh small-town life. It’s now running at the Finborough Theatre , after performances at the Edinburgh Festival and across Wales. The Aberfan disaster is well known in the UK but perhaps less so elsewhere. The facts of the tragedy are confined to the programme notes rather than in the piece. On 21 October 1966, the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on a mountain above Aberfan engulfed a local school, killing many. The play avoids the causes and negligence, instead focusing on those working and building lives in the town. Writer-performer Liam Holmes plays Stephen Jones, a...
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Theatre: Aspects of Love
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After a week away from London, I was back in town this week to see a preview with the West End Whingers and others of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Aspects of Love, being revived at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Some might say it is an odd sort of story with a few catchy tunes, others might say it is Lloyd Webber's best work... As I had not seen it before (and hadn't been out for a while since being away) I was keen to see this chamber musical. Well I was just to be out really but that's another matter. All told, I enjoyed the cast and the production.
What works about this show is the cast and the production. It is a show centred around a few characters so it benefits from the small space. It could probably be a little smaller as there were the odd distractions of sets moving in and out like it was removal day... Given how close you are to the stage I did enjoy the the occasional sleight of hand such as when the daughter grows up in a song and gets replaced by an older actor in a less than well-fitting wig. The wig was so prominent that I looked for it in the cast list.
Anyway, the performances of the main leads are what makes this production and there is some nice casting here. Katherine Kingsley as Rose and Michael Arden as Alex made for a cute couple in the first act. As the show spans 17 years (although not that you would believe this by the lack of even subtle ageing or maturity displayed in their characterisations), perhaps the point of the show is to look at the people in your life who keep coming back in it... The second act plods along so much that you will feel ever year of those 17 however. Filling out the trio is Dave Willetts in the role of the Uncle and he manages to give a spark to the show. Not just from his voice and performance but there is also a scene where he is showing off a little of his physique... This could be a new trend in theatre of shirtless older men. If it is, I think I have spotted it first.
The music suits the show in this small scale production. Some in our troupe were less enthused about the ongoing reuse of the same themes, but in the context of this show this seemed appropriate (aspects of emotions of love no doubt). Besides, every composer recycles and musicals are infamous for this trick. The the lack of new material is usually explained away by the need to reinforce emotional themes or some other slightly plausible reason. What really lets this show down is the book and the lyrics. Often the lyrics seem to serve no point in moving the story along other than to restate the obvious in rather trite rhymes...
The book simply takes some potentially interesting characters and trashes them in the second act rather than develops some ideas about their motivations. There were occasional flashes of brilliance with lines uttered by Max to Rose such as, "When I see the mountains, I will think of you." Nobody else in the theatre seemed up for jokes about tits that much but our little troupe made up for it with our tittering. Given the second act moves so slowly the next best thing to do is to have a good drink at interval and then nod off a bit in the second act. If you wake up in the last 20 minutes you will pick up the story without much trouble.
It is hard to work out what the central message of this show is. Maybe it is don't sleep with your uncle's girlfriend. It all gets a bit incestuous and where I come from, the plot could be best described as, "A bit Tasmanian". In fact by the time you get through the second act and have seen our central character, lust after his much younger cousin, and then run off with his uncle's paramour, it seems a shame the show wasn't titled Merrily We Roll Together.
All told the show is very watchable, but you do leave feeling like you've been prying on someone's dirty little secret rather than gaining any understanding about the human condition... It runs until 26th September. Go see it, but not with your uncle or your cousin... That would be a little... icky...
David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan...
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue . Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple. The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial ...
Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
