Featured Post

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

Image
[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

Cough medicine: Quiz

You don’t often expect to go to a show where coughing during the performance is essential part of it. James Graham’s Quiz at Noel Coward Theatre elevates a minor moment in history into a melodrama fit for television. The story is around the trial of Charles and Diana Ingram who were convicted of trying to defraud the quiz show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” in 2003. Mostly through a series of well-timed coughs.

Cameras roll, music roars, the mob votes on little gizmos. There’s even a nod to the humble pub quiz as its origins. It is fun. But it’s also a night that leaves you thinking about another quiz show. Pointless. The production is drunk on the television gimmicks it’s trying to critique. The glamour of television, instant polls and dazzling lighting. 

All come at the expense of character development and a convincing argument about confirmation bias. You get a chance to vote on whether they’re guilty twice. Once before interval and once at the end. It’s set up to get people to be more open minded second time around. But that’s only if you care about the characters. What comes across strongest is they’re odd and generally unlikable, even if you didn’t know the Ingram’s would be later convicted for insurance fraud.

The performers do their best with the material. But they’re no match for razzle dazzle of showbiz. At times it touches on some serious issues. The manufactured news from a relentless publicity machine. The cosy relationship between the police and press. 

But this is no Network. Soon there’s another instant poll or pub quiz to answer and we’re back to a night where the pursuit of the trivial is all that’s at stake. If that’s all the West End can offer you’d be better off staying in and watching the evening news. 

Directed by Daniel Evans, Quiz is at the Noel Coward Theatre until 16 June.

⭐️⭐️

Photos by Johan Persson.


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 security
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...