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

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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...

Projections and doing time: Time Is Love @Finborough

If there is hell on earth, it just might be in Los Angeles. The city is full of petty crime, bored lap dancers and the cops who after putting you away end up sleeping with your wife. Chè Walker’s play which is having its European premiere at the Finborough Theatre is often difficult to follow. It’s set in the last remaining barrios of East Los Angeles. Perhaps the central message is that even when a cop sleeps with your wife, no amount of revenge sex will make it better. But the produciton has assembled a great cast to tell the tale of bored friends and acquaintances who use sex and anger to pass the time.

Benjamin Cawley and Gabriel Akuwudike establish a fascinating bromance as the petty criminals and longtime pals, Karl and Blaz. Karl leaves him to take the fall for a botched robbery. Three years later out of jail, nothing for Blaz seems right. Sheila Atim is mesmerising as the weary lap-dancer Rosa. And there’s a great scene with Sasha Frost the sex worker and ex school mate of Blaz who talks him out of sex without offering a refund. Time is money after all.

It’s a simple production with a series of projections used to depict the change in time, place and mood. Too bad they often distract from the performances on stage. A meditation on love, betrayal and revenge sex.

Written and directed by Chè Walker, Time is Love is at the Finborough Theatre until 26 January.

⭐️⭐️⭐️


Photos by DWGH photos

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