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Showing posts with the label Joseph Atkins

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No country for old women: Old Ladies - at Finborough Theatre

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The day after seeing The Old Ladies at the Finborough Theatre , I was describing the play to someone in great detail: about three old ladies who lived in a rickety house in southern England in 1935. Based on Hugh Walpole’s novel and adapted by Rodney Ackland, it is the sort of story with enough believability, humour and mild thriller to stick in your mind. Perhaps it is the lure of this dark, forboding tale of a life without money, to be alone and to be old, that makes you feel attracted to this poverty porn. But then again, given the state of the world, the cost of living, an ageing population, or just the fact that it’s a dog-eat-dog world, it might as well be an every little old lady-for-herself, too. It’s a well-acted and staged piece that moves at a brisk pace, so there isn’t much time to think about it too much. And in the intimate (or should that be claustrophobic?) space of the Finborough, there’s nowhere to avert your eyes. Even if you wanted to.  The scene is a grim Cathe...
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Sing from the heart: Liza Pulman - The Heart of It @riversidelondon

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Liza Pulman is on this week at the Riverside Studios . It’s in keeping with the series of shows that we should have seen two years ago or things that we should have been doing two years ago (if it weren’t for that pesky global pandemic). Her show is called The Heart of It , and there’s a lot of heart in it. Watching Pulman sing a series of classic and perhaps overlooked songs of the past feels like we’re all picking up where we left off. The songs she sings are part of a timeless series of classic standards by the likes of Irving Berlin and Fats Waller. Songs about love, loss and revelation all fit into the category of easy listening, and with her sublime vocals, they are easy on the ear. And they may not be songs for the young, but they are songs for the young at heart. Liza Pulman comes from a show business family. Her father was screenwriter Jack Pulman, and her mother was an actress. Growing up, she sang in a close harmony duo with her sister. She would then train as an opera singe...
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