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: Company at the Southwark Playhouse
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One thing that hit me seeing Company at the Southwark Playhouse Tuesday night, was how the opening few notes can really be an ear worm. I doubt anyone leaving the theatre after this production doesn't want to go up to someone and yell, "BOBBY! BOBBY! BOBBY-BABY!" Or perhaps punch somebody who comes up to them and says something like that.
Company has no plot to speak of, but through a series of vignettes, gives some idea about Robert, a single straight(ish) man turning 35 and his smug married friends. Its about the lives of middle class New Yorkers, with their eccentricities and foibles, so you may find yourself struggling to see its relevance to modern day London. But of course this is Sondheim, it's a slick production with a great looking, and great sounding cast, so you can overlook that bit...
Bobby, played by Rupert Young, is not an immediately likable character. But as the show progresses, Young's performance makes you feel as if you know him. Or at least you understand all that womanising and coke snorting... And his final song is knockout. The rest of the cast are just as impressive. Cassidy Janson as Amy deftly sings "Getting Married Today" with its machine-gun consonants, and Greg Castiglioni playing her husband has an incredible tenor voice. Siobhán McCarthy as Joanne stops the show with her performance of the song "Ladies Who Lunch". Actually she was stopping the show before the song with her interpretation of the role and channeling Bette Davis (too bad there is no planned revival of Applause).
I tend to think the themes work best leaving them in the late 1960s early 1970s as the discussions seem a little quaint or anachronistic moving them anywhere else. Perhaps the production is suggesting lines like:
Have I got a girl for you, boy! Hoo, boy! Dumb! And with a weakness for sazarac slings! You give her even the fruit and she swings...
Could have been overheard conversations from television sports commentators...
If there was one drawback to the show it would be the pacing. Clunky material aside, the first half plods, entrances take too long and dialogue is not dispensed with quickly enough. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts and the slow delivery of individual lines dragged things on and exposes the weaknesses of the original material.
Notwithstanding this, it's a great night out and running the Southwark Playhouse until 12 March... Catch it if you can. Perhaps a longer run elsewhere wouldn't be too much of a stretch either... Or at least a new cast recording?
The Southwark Playhouse has a great bar area which was where we recorded the first impression boo's... It's a nice space. I'll drink to that...
The Sondheim Cult Society also talks to Young and McCarthy here as well...
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.
