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Showing posts from June, 2011

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One hundred people’s ninth favourite thing: [title of show] @swkplay

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[title of show] takes you back to a time before the fast paced social media where word of mouth for a positive show came from chat boards, video diaries or (god forbid) blogs. A simple staging makes it an ideal (and economical piece to stage), but it’s sweet and earnest take on just putting on a show, and putting it out there and taking a chance gives this show its heart. With a strong and energetic cast and endless musical theatre references, it’s hard to resist and it’s currently playing at the Southwark Playhouse .  It opens with Hunter (Jacob Fowler) and Jeff (Thomas Oxley) as struggling young writers in New York City. An upcoming New York Musical Theatre festival, inspires them to write an original musical within three weeks to make the deadline. As they discuss ideas, writers block, distractions and endless other good and bad musicals, an idea for a show emerges. Which is about writing a show for a musical theatre festival.  Their friends Heidi (Abbie Budden) and Susan (Mary Moor
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Theatre and perspiration: Roadshow

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The tennis at Wimbledon at the moment is getting really exciting, so it was great when walking into the Menier Chocolate Factory to see Stephen Sondheim's Roadshow that the seats were arranged like you were at Wimbledon - comfortable but a bit hot and forcing you to turn your head to see the action as it moved across court  the stage. Staging (and heat) aside, this is an interesting piece of theatre about two brothers who have various scams and schemes and in the process end up building a town in Florida, writing a screenplay (or at least being in the room when it was written), and developing an architectural style that (for better or worse) persists to this day. It is all interesting enough to have you wanting to locate the source material, or at least looking up the history of Boca Raton on the internet.
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Theatre: Mr Happiness and The Water Engine

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Monday night, Johnnyfox and I found ourselves in the dark, cold underworld where dreams are destroyed by faceless businessmen. We also found ourselves at the Old Vic Tunnels , a fabulous collection of spaces under the railway arches near Waterloo station (that are also a little bit dark and dank) watching Mr Happiness and the Water Engine, two short plays written by David Mamet originally for radio.
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Theatre: The Flying Karamazov Brothers

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Friday night, half way through the second act of the Flying Karamazov Brothers when lead Karamazov (Paul Magid) was trying to say something funny, a lady in the second row staggers to her feet and interrupts saying for all to hear, "I just wahnt to saye that theeeshow is aabsolutely wahnderful". At this point Magid offers to give her a kiss. She initially declines announcing that her shoes are off (prompting the audience begin wondering if she was the owner of the shoes that were offered up for juggling in the first half of the show). Eventually she gets up, staggers up to the stage, gets a kiss and staggers back to her seat. It was random acts of humour throughout this show that made it all somewhat worth the while.
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Theatre: Blink Again Turn on the lights!

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It took me a while to work out why a man in a Spiderman suit kept appearing on stage for a show about songs from flop shows. I was somewhat distracted by the low turnout on Thursday evening to see Blink Again at Above The Stag  to think too much further. Maybe it was the weather or maybe it just wasn't gay enough show for the venue. But the cast were energetic and the irony of the lack of a big audience didn't seem lost on them. The show was a compilation of some great (and some not so great) songs from shows that perhaps did not put them in their best light. This includes songs such as "A Boy from Nowhere" from Matador and China Doll from Marguerite. In the second half things liven up even more with a spirited re-enactment of scenes from the Umbrellas of Cherbourg. There is also a number from Tarzan where the actor stripped down to a rather skimpy loincloth and sang a rather vulnerable song... The show runs until 3 July and notwithstanding the occasional under
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Opera: Macbeth

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The Royal Opera's production of Macbeth has its final performance on Saturday. It is a great production with a strong performance by Simon Keenlyside in the title role, and a hell of strong performance by Liudmyla Monastyrska as Lady Macbeth. When she first appears lying on a bed you have no idea the power the voice you are going to hear. But wow. She is perfectly suited for the role and the audience was very appreciative of the performance. Matching this is a series of strong choruses energetically conducted by Antonio Pappano. Verdi's opera is a fast-paced drama that gets to the essence of Shakespeare's play and all the performances worked so well here bringing it all together This production directed originally by Phyllida Lloyd is an interesting mix of the bloody and sophisticated and even if it has received ambivalence in previous outings , it all seemed to hang well together. I particularly liked the chorus of witches as Frida Kahlo clones that are integrated
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Music: Matthew Morrison

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Matthew Morrison somewhat exploded onto the stage last night at the Hammersmith Apollo. Well there was a lot of bass noise anyway. In fact, it was hard to pass any judgement on the show given the bass drowned out his vocals most of the evening. The ladies shouting for him to get his shirt off seemed more audible. The technical problems were not just with the base but also with late pick ups, cameras in the way, projections running on a laptop that was low on batteries. Still, Matthew Morrison couldn't be accused of being low on batteries however as he sang / danced / bounced on stage for almost two hours. It was a great performance and Morrison is a very likeable performer. Highlights included a medley of songs from West Side Story accompanied by bongos, which thankfully someone recorded and sent to Perez Hilton (above). There were also a number of tracks both from Glee and his new album Summer Rain  that were a treat, including Somewhere Over the Rainbow. The show lasted t
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Scenes from London: World Naked Bike Ride 2011

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Hundreds of cyclists braved the weather (well it turned out to be sunny once the ride started), narrow London streets, traffic, road works and pedestrians with long lenses on Saturday to mark the annual world naked bike ride , which (among other things) is a protest for more sustainable transport. This year it seemed a little more chaotic with naked people having to wait at traffic lights surrounded by cars, red-faced taxi drivers, busses and tourists. If you ever have nightmares about being stranded naked in Piccadilly Circus, then this is the event to live them. It all helped underscore this year's message on cycling safety and how vulnerable cyclists are in the streets when motorists aren't aware of them. More men than women seemed to be taking part this year, which wasn't such a bad thing since there was a good showing of fit types amongst the other body shapes on display... And not having a bike didn't stop people from taking part this year thanks to the  Bori
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Opera: Simon Boccanegra

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It was interesting to try and attempt to transplant Genoa from the 1300s to the 1960s in this  ENO production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra . It does not quite work, but it still looks so sophisticated and hip you can probably overlook this and feel smug anyway. Unless of course you were the lady next to me who was unwell five minutes before the end of the first half and fell over my man bag running for the exits. But I digress... There is some beauty in this production as tableaus become images and spectacle abounds. Although if you have been to Genoa and seen the palaces that the Doges - who were elected for life and were among the leading merchant families of the region - it makes it a bit hard to comprehend why everyone was moving about in grey suits and minimalist sets. The opera itself is fairly convoluted and requires descriptions projected onto curtains between scenes just so you have a vague chance of understanding what is going on. So the modern transplanting of the op
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Theatre: Rumours

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Rumours-Teaser Trailer from Rob Watt on Vimeo . If the eighties were the decade of big hair, big angst and big dramas, then Neil Simon's comedy-farce Rumours probably fits in rather nicely. It is a sex scandal, political intrigue, power dressing fetish extravaganza rolled into one.  Farce isn't every one's cup of tea but I was in the mood for cheap laughs on Thursday evening and it did not disappoint. This production transfers the setting from its original New York to Oxford, which makes the cultural references more relevant. The premise is that as guests arrive at the home of the finance minister and his wife for a tenth anniversary celebratory dinner, there is an attempted suicide and the hosts are nowhere to be seen. Given the status of the hosts and the guests, everyone decides it is in their interests to conceal the truth rather than risk a political scandal. Cue pandemonium. While I wasn't sure if anyone in the cast was born in the eighties let alone li
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Movies: Vallanzasca - Angels of Evil

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It's been a while since I have seen a truly satisfying crime film. This is probably the most interesting film since Animal Kingdom and worth catching, despite the luke-warm reviews from the press. It probably helps to have lived through the 70s and 80s when Vallanzasca was Italy's notorious bank robber, kidnapper, escapee etc. Characters come and go and you are taken on a whirlwind tour of fashion through the period. But even without the prior knowledge of the history (and the endless characters), it is a great (gory) ride helped by the performance of Kim Rossi Stuart in the lead. He's hot and for a gangster film he spends an unusually long amount of screen time in his underwear. One suspects he won't be single for long ...
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Theatre: London Road

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Suffolk murder musical angers Ipswich by itnnews The Ipswich serial murders that took place around December 2006 quickly captured the nation's attention. So much so that I remember the tales such as: How do they know it's Christmas in Ipswich? Because they keep finding prossies under the trees... I also remember have a frightfully engaging conversation with the woman at the supermarket about how many strangled prostitutes had been found in Ipswich. It was all gripping stuff. And easy to make jokes and have silly conversations about something that was taking place in far away Ipswich. So I was intrigued to see London Road , best described as a play with music, that attempts to recount and make some sense about the serial murders and the community that lived through it. The red light district, seamen, police tape and neighbourhood watch meetings are all set to music in a sung-spoken kind of way. It has captured the immagination of the National Theatre -going public an
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