Featured Post

The greatest show and other bromances: Adam Riches and John Kearns ARE Ball and Boe @sohotheatre

Image
Alfie Boe and Michael Ball seem to be a bit of a joke act anyway. Their endless interpretations of popular songs (also known as covers) and their double-act bromance make them quintessential crossover artists where popular music meets opera and Broadway. And a perilous choice for the discerning listener. It’s not that they aren’t talented musicians and performers in their own right. Still, their musical choices are always safe, predictable and less than their potential. But every country deserves to have a pair of self-described national treasures that can tour the local arenas and give people a good time for the bargain price of £175 a seat.  And so the concept of Adam Riches and John Kearns - two world-famous from the Edinburgh Fringe comedians taking on this bromance seems like a curious choice for a Christmas musical fare. One can only hope that over the fourteen nights, it is playing at the Soho Theatre that the show evolves into something more substantial than a series of po...

Theatre: A Round-Heeled Woman

A Round-Heeled Woman has just transferred from the Riverside Studios to the Aldwych Theatre. It is an opportunity for Sharon Gless (of Cagney and Lacey fame) to portray through part monologue / part drama the true story of Jane Juska. Juska is a woman who placed an advertisement in the The New York Review of Books that read: "Before I turn 67 – next March – I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me." 

The play, which is based upon Juska's book, goes through some of the encounters that lead to love, heartbreak, rejection and laughs. The audience on Friday night was not prepared for the humiliation arising from this situation. There were audible gasps when one of her male suitors tells her why she needs to get some lubricant. 

But the sharp wit and brutal incisiveness is frequently undermined by a superfluous supporting cast that have little to do, and a set so distracting that it has your mind wondering to ask questions such as, "Why does Juska have a tomb in her front garden?" Maybe it is meant to be a metaphor. But perhaps cutting back on both would enable more time to focus on the central character. 

Still, Gless gives a pretty good performance and it is an enjoyable night. But perhaps the target audience is for those whose last outing was to see Menopause The Musical, although there were plenty of fans from Gless's Cagney and Lacey and Queer As Folk days in the audience... It runs until January. Incidentally Tyne Daly is appearing January in Masterclass... Maybe the two productions should have a mash-up?

Popular posts from this blog

Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

Image
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...
Read more...

Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

Image
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 ...
Read more...

Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

Image
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.
Read more...