Featured Post

Scenes from a marriage: Jab @parktheatre

Image
Jab takes us back to five years ago when no theatres were open. Instead, it was staying at home watching endless television, clapping for the NHS, mask-wearing and hand washing. Against this backdrop, isolation from a married couple of 29 years slowly drives them apart and to the brink. But while it captures the period well, you want to know more about this couple on the edge. It's currently playing at Park Theatre after its premiere run at the Finborough Theatre last year.  James McDermott's play is loosely based on his parent's lives during the pandemic. It opens with Ann (Kacey Ainsworth) and Don (Liam Tobin) watching the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson inform the nation they need to stay at home. She is an NHS worker, and he runs a vintage shop. As she is an essential worker, she has work to do, but he is forced to stay at home while his shop is closed. There's also another source of tension in that Anne brings in all the income in the household. And so we watch ...

Fear of missing out: A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad) @SilentUproarPro


When you chose to see a show called A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad), you know that something serious will get an upbeat musical cabaret treatment. But the cast's enthusiasm makes this show about discovering that it is ok not to be ok both compelling and a delight.

It focuses on Sally as she comes to terms with understanding what it means to be depressed. From her first feelings of not being there in the moment. To the denials that anything is wrong. To the false dawns that she's made a breakthrough and managing it. And while a show about depression and suicide may not be for everyone, every stage is covered with a healthy dose of curiosity and perspective.

And after nearly 18 months of lockdowns, the struggles of young people to find their way and carve out a future for themselves seems even more relevant. 

Written by Jon Brittain, it's more of a show than a play. With props on stage and a cast of three that play a range of roles in Sally's life. As the super happy Sally, Madeleine MacMahon gives this piece its energy and joy as she veers from being in and out of control.

But the message of the show is about getting talking about how you feel. And finding one thing that makes you feel better. Like listening to another mixtape or watching something new, even if it's a theatre show on a well-established streaming platform.

Lovingly filmed in front of an audience at Wiltons Music Hall in June 2021 and directed by Alex Mitchell with musical director and composer Matthew Floyd Jones, A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad) is available to stream until 11 July on Stream Theatre. 


Photos by Sam Taylor


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...