Theatre
Naima Khan
Performed by a cast of ten actor-musicians, Derek Bond's take on Shakespeare's comedy of gender-reversal and the constancy (or not) of love is melodic, quirky and at its absolute best when it loses all sense of seriousness. It takes a while to get there given the Bard's finicky set-up, but Bond delights throughout in the characters' foibles and sense of rebellion and he fearlessly works the audience into the show - which, presumably, is as they like it.Brothers Orlando and Oliver fight over their inheritance while cousins Rosalind and Celia look on. Rosalind and Orlando before long fall for Read more ...
Marianka Swain
Like their divisive protagonist, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice could reasonably be accused of valuing style over substance: indelible extravaganza Evita subscribes to the cult of celebrity without truly interrogating it, nor are we given enough dramatised information to make a real judgement about a woman equally lauded and vilified. Bill Kenwright and Bob Tomson don't address these failings so much as largely distract from them in their marvellously fluid revival, aided by Matthew Wright’s mobile set and Bill Deamer’s fiery, flamenco-heavy choreography. This may not be the definitive Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Opening on the day after the Scottish Referendum, Chris Thompson’s new play has a timely, even incendiary, title. It also recalls the sad little song ‘Albion’ by Pete Doherty and Babyshambles. This time, however, The Albion is the name of an East End pub which is the home of the English Protection Army, a far-right outfit that is both stupid and more than a touch sinister. If these groups weren’t currently on the rise, cashing in on public disquiet about militant Islamism, it would be much easier to dismiss their Neanderthal posturing.But this lot are in trouble. The EPA’s leader, Paul, wants Read more ...
philip radcliffe
Instead of that small well-worn stone balcony in that courtyard in Verona, picture an extended well-worn cast-iron balcony in the Victoria Baths in Manchester. The young lovers have ample room to move in the labyrinthine interior of the old building, with its three disused tiled swimming pools and ecclesiastical stained glass windows. Romeo is the length of a cricket pitch away as he addresses Juliet on the balcony and, for some reason, is moved to do a take on “Love Me Do”.The old changing cubicles are still there, crumbling away, but providing hidey-holes for the warring gangs of Montagues Read more ...
aleks.sierz
The number of plays commemorating the outbreak of the First World War continues to grow, with some already falling casualty to critical fire or to rapidly waning audience interest. Taking the field rather late in the day, and putting his head above the parapet this week is veteran playwright Howard Brenton, who has had enormous success at this venue with the much-revived Anne Boleyn. His take on the subject of the Great War is a beautifully eccentric one, and tells the story of one man’s war against war.The story focuses on 19-year-old Jack Twigg, an Oxford student from a humble background Read more ...
Heather Neill
In his masterly essay in the programme for Enda Walsh's latest play, Colm Tóibín warns against attempting to pin his work to a particular philosophical position, but simply to read into it a metaphor for humanity's efforts to cope with life while knowing that there is no escape from death. And certainly an attempt at blow-by-blow analysis – even understanding – would be a waste of time. Ballyturk is a thing in and of itself. Having said that, it has recognisable traits of Walsh's previous pieces for the stage and he has himself said that it was inspired by his daughter, then six years Read more ...
Veronica Lee
One of the oddities about theatre is that there can be a gripping performance at the heart of an underwhelming production – and so is the case with Maxine Peake’s Hamlet, directed by Sarah Frankcom. This was a much anticipated production – Peake going home, as it were. She started acting at the Royal Exchange Youth Group and is now an associate artist at the theatre, and has recently been seen giving a towering performance in The Village on BBC One. Frankcom’s production, meanwhile, is described in the press release as a “radical reimagining” of the play.Peake’s interpretation has much to Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Few contemporary playwrights have enjoyed as many revivals as polymath Philip Ridley. The first two of his 1990s gothic East End trilogy — The Pitchfork Disney and The Fastest Clock in the Universe — have recently been staged again to great effect and now it’s the turn of the final play in the trilogy, Ghost from a Perfect Place. When it was originally put on at the Hampstead Theatre in 1994 it shocked audiences with its full-on violence. But what is its impact today?Set in a badly scorched flat in the East End of London, the play opens with 76-year-old Torchie Sparks, a granny with a Read more ...
David Nice
“It takes a star to parody one,” wrote theartsdesk’s Edward Seckerson, nailing the essence of this immortal spoof-fest’s last incarnation at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Star quality was assured given the presence of Damian Humbley, peerless in Merrily We Roll Along and even the unjustly short-lived Lend Me a Tenor, who’s in this transfer. Sophie-Louise Dann, a genius of a performer who dazzled as a prima donna in that last and even stole the show as a minor lovesick aesthete in a Proms Patience, isn’t – she’s busy preparing her Barbara Castle in Made in Dagenham just down the Strand, though Read more ...
Ismene Brown
Prince Charles’s “black spider letters” - his attempts to influence or change government policy - are real, as is the government’s long collusion with Clarence House to keep them from the public, despite the efforts of The Guardian in particular to expose them. This gives Mike Bartlett’s play King Charles III, an imagining of the next king becoming a champion of press freedom, a sharply ironic edge deep below its already very entertaining satire.Transferred from the Almeida Theatre to become, surely, a West End hit, this features among many reasons for enjoyment a magnetic central performance Read more ...
Marianka Swain
If Chiltern Firehouse is any indication, power in our society lies not in bank balance, postcode or job title, but in being seen nibbling crab doughnuts at the hottest restaurant in town. Becky Mode’s merciless skewering of that particular ego trip first delighted the discerning palates of Menier Chocolate Factory audiences in 2004 and makes a welcome return for the theatre’s 10th anniversary, now directed by original star and creative collaborator Mark Setlock. He and Mode both did time in pretentious Big Apple eateries, Setlock answering phones and Mode waiting tables – hellish experiences Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
Time doesn’t take any of the edge off Sam Shepard’s rollicking reflection on the dichotomy of America, the tussle between the myth and the dream, represented by two warring brothers trapped with an idea for a bad film in a sweltering California condominium. Written in 1980, it’s still brilliantly strange, raucously funny, rippling with resonance.Directed by Phillip Breen, this production first aired in Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre last year. It’s a very good fit for the Tricycle, whose intimacy heightens our sense of eavesdropping on one helluva sibling spat.Austin (Eugene O’Hare) is a Read more ...