Posts

Showing posts with the label theatre pubs

Featured Post

He had it coming: Burnt Up Love @finborough

Image
Out of the darkness and shadows, three characters emerge. Lit only with candlelight or flashlights, a gripping tale by writer and performer Ché Walker about crime, punishment, love, and loss emerges. The fast pace conveys a sense of urgency to make up for lost time, lost opportunities, and what might have been. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We first meet Mac (Ché Walker) in prison, serving time for a crime he committed. With only a photo of his young daughter, Scratch, to keep him company, he looks for her upon release. But Scratch (Joanne Marie Mason) isn’t the teacher, lawyer or dancer Mac imagined while incarcerated over the years she might be. Instead, Scratch is in and out of trouble, on the edge, angry and violent. A chance encounter one night with JayJayJay (Alice Walker) forms a loving bond and gives her a moment of stability. But Scratch’s demons and restlessness mean trouble does not seem far away. Scratch's random act of thoughtless violence against
Read more...

Keep on truckin': The Understudy @Canalcafe

Image
With the Oscars now over, the self-congratulatory season of handing out awards for movies has ended for another year. The Understudy at The Canal Café Theatre seems relevant. It's a funny take on how theatre and film seem to be at times competing art forms. But in the end it is always about money. Jake is a big star. He has had a hit action movie open but he is currently on Broadway in a three hour Kafka play. Jobbing actor Harry is going to be his understudy. Stage manager Roxanne has to get them through a rehearsal but it turns out Harry and Roxanne have a history. And so sets the scene for debates about the worthiness of theatre versus the cheap thrills of the screen.
Read more...

Ice cream and other treats: She Loves Me @LandorTheatre

Image
It has been a week since I caught She Loves Me at the the Landor Theatre, but there is something so sweet, perky and fun about this show that it lingers with you long after you have seen it. Perhaps the terrific cast headed by Charlotte Jaconelli and John Sandberg helps. There is so much enthusiasm in the performances that you can't help but like it. It is a show about mistaken identity, scandal and intrigue. The story revolves around a little shop in Budapest and two of its employees. Although they are constantly at odds with each other, through a personals advertisement, they inadvertently become anonymous pen pals. Soon romance starts to develop. The work is based on a play by Miklos Laszlo that would become The Shop Around the Corner and the inspiration for such films as You've Got Mail.
Read more...

Wishful thinking: The Last Ever Musical

Image
Most new musicals these days are just a string of old songs cobbled together to make a not very good show. They are probably best enjoyed if you don't understand English too well so the flimsy plots and melodramas can be mistaken for something more profound. But of course nowadays most of the time the fun is really in going out to the theatre and having a night out rather than watching whats on stage... On the fringe scene, musicals are usually an opportunity to see a work that isn't going to get a commercial run, or something cheap to mount - like Jason Robert Brown's Last Five Years or I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change - and more fun to be in than watch... With this in mind it was intriguing to go and see the new piece, The Last Ever Musical at the White Bear Theatre in Kennington. It is a new piece by Simon James Collier and music by Richard Bates. It attempts to be a musical that's a tad offensive and vulgar and send up some of the London fringe theatre
Read more...