Posts

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
Read more...

Spectacle and smut: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Image
There probably isn't a more glamorous and fun night out on the West End at the moment than with the current production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels playing at the Savoy Theatre on the West End. Everything about it is big, broad and lavish. The set piece numbers, the costumes and the jokes. But most memorable is the star turn by Katherine Kingsley as the heiress that the two confidence men - Freddy and Lawrence - played by Rufus Hound and Robert Lindsay try to con. At times the show feels that it could be easily played as a three-hander as Hound, Lindsay and Kingsley are on stage for most of the time and so much fun to watch. This show is no minimalistic production. There are several big and elaborate dance numbers - just in the first act. Perhaps there is a more economical show within the source material that might help give the piece a snappier pace, but even at its current lavish abundance, it still makes for great entertainment.
Read more...

Strange animals: Banksy: The Room in the Elephant @arcolatheatre

Image
In 2011, while Banksy was in California he decided to write on a derelict white water tank "this looks a bit like an elephant". Suddenly a piece of junk in Los Angeles becomes the latest sought after piece of art, cranes arrive and it is carted off to a secret location and offered for sale. But the work of art had also been a home a man had been living in for the past seven years. He finds the furnishing it with things he found discarded, finds himself homeless. This is the is the story that makes up Banksy: The Room in the Elephant playing at the Arcola Theatre . Tachowa Covington, the man who lived in the elephant recounts his experiences in LA, living amongst the rich and famous and meeting Banksy. The inspiration for the work came from a story Did Banksy's latest work bring misery to a homeless man?  Presented as a one man show and also as a commentary both on the art world and the theatre world (since both are making something out of someone else's story
Read more...

Boom and bust: Eldorado @arcolatheatre

Image
Property deals, war, angst and a healthy dose of absurdism mark Eldorado , the stylish new production currently playing at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston. It is beautiful to look at and so well staged that you might feel inclined to seek out investment opportunities in Iraq afterwards, even if it has your recalling the worst excesses of the Iraq war. The play opens with a description of a post-apocalyptic description of a war-torn land, that is open for a "unique investment opportunity". We are then introduced to Anton (pictured). He has it made. He has a wonderful house, a wife who is a talented pianist and they are expecting a baby.
Read more...

A drawn out title for a drawn out play: We Are Proud To Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia...

Image
Jackie Sibblies Drury's play, which has the full title of: We Are Proud To Present A Presentation About the Herero Of Namibia, Formerly Known As Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika Between The Years 1884 - 1915, shows that there is a fine line between challenging an audience and boring them to death. About twenty minutes into the piece of shouting and confusion (which is intended as it is scripted) we wanted to leave, but both the work and the layout of the Bush Theatre conspire to keep you captive... Whether you want to be or not.
Read more...

Pop-up opera: Le Docteur Miracle

Image
Popup Opera's spring season of operas in unlikely places was a chance to venture to a gallery in Hackney Wick to see this short opera about a young man who goes into various disguises to win the hand of his lover. With some great performances, fresh ideas and a few modern twists, it makes for a fun (if slightly silly) night out. The piece by Bizet is a comic opérette (a French form of light opera), in one act by Bizet for soprano, mezzo, tenor and baritone. The hero, a young man called Silvio, comes to the mayor's house in various disguises in order to win the hand of the mayor's daughter, Laurette. The mayor's new wife conspires with his daughter to see true love prevails, but not before some mild hi-jinks.
Read more...

Life from the Front of House: Ushers The Musical @CharingCrossThr

Image
Some inspired late night comedy is currently playing at the Charing Cross Theatre with Ushers The Front Of House Musical . It takes its story from the brutal reality that ushers on the West End are usually actors between jobs who often have more talent than the soap stars on stage. The piece is full of in-jokes and bitchy barbs at theatre life (that is the life of an usher at a theatre). But what is most impressive that this young talented cast muster up the energy and dance moves to bring this show to life at the late starting time of 10.15pm. The plot is a bit cliched and the production values are low, but the cast are enthusiastic and the music is inspired to make this a rather fun late night show to catch. Set at the theatre playing (s)hit Britney Spears jukebox musical, "Oops I did it again" the ushers learn the ropes and sell over-priced ice cream while dreaming of their next big break, finding love, or in the case of one usher, stalking the stars and posting phot
Read more...

A wee bit of fun: Urinetown @st_jamestheatre

Image
The star power of its cast and wonderful production design make Urinetown the Musical a show to catch for its short run. Just don't expect a happy ending... Or pleasant subject matter. It is an anti-musical so it turns the genre upside down and parodies everything, including itself. The cast have an incredible energy and in the the intimate space of the St James Theatre their enthusiasm will have you hooked. The piece is set in some dystopian city where a severe drought has made private bathrooms unthinkable. People have to pay to go to the bathroom. If they don't pay to pee, they get carted off to this mythical place called Urinetown... And are never heard of again.
Read more...

Men chasing older women: The Fat Man's Wife

Image
Remaining un-produced until 2004, The Fat Man's Wife by Tennessee Williams is having its UK Premiere at the Canal Cafe Theatre . It is a fragment of a play rather than a fully fledged piece that is about a sophisticated society lady who has to make a choice... Should she stay with her rich philandering husband or run off to Mexico with a poor young playwright?  It's Hobson's Choice set in the Upper East Side . Written in 1937, it is perhaps it is probably also the first case of a MILF relationship portrayed on stage. But it a fascinating look at how some of Tennessee Williams's observations on women, relationships and situations would later develop. And even if it is a bit predictable, running under an hour it makes for a none too taxing early evening diversion.
Read more...