family relationships
Marianka Swain
William Finn and James Lapine’s musical – which combines two linked one-acts, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, set in late 1970s/early 1980s New York – picked up Tony Awards in 1992 for its book and score, and was nominated again in 2016 for an acclaimed revival. Yet the UK hasn’t sighted this landmark piece until now, with Tara Overfield-Wilkinson directing and choreographing an engaging if somewhat chaotic production.Daniel Boys plays Marvin, who recently left wife Trina (Laura Pitt-Pulford) for lover Whizzer (Oliver Savile, pictured below) – while maintaining close ties for Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
A tale of teenage depression and its family resonances, Florian Zeller’s The Son has a devastating simplicity. It’s the final part of a loose trilogy, following on from the playwright’s The Father and The Mother, but the new play eschews the obliquely experimental structure of its predecessors for something much more direct. Where the earlier works explored the nature of dramatic perception itself – through the prisms of dementia and psychosis respectively – The Son concentrates its stark energy on the experience of mental illness in a story that’s partly about the consequences of divorce but Read more ...
Veronica Lee
There was a time when a new series of The Affair (Sky Atlantic) would cause the heart to quicken; now, not so much. Actually that sounds like the course of most extramarital affairs – an initial rush to spend time with the object of your affection, only for the desire to dwindle over time. Yet the opening episode (of 11) of the fifth and final series promised that this would be an interesting hook-up as there's an intriguing new thread with the introduction of the adult version of a character we last saw as a child in a previous series.In the opening episode things were in a state of flux in Read more ...
India Lewis
Karl Marlantes’s Deep River is an all-American novel. And why should it not be? Marlantes is an all-American author. He grew up in small-town Oregon, attended Yale (and Oxford), fought and was heavily awarded as a Marine in Vietnam, then settled down to convert his experiences into the well-received Matterhorn and What It Is Like To Go To War. In Deep River, he returns to his childhood to tell the story of his Finnish heritage, loosely basing it on The Kalevala, a collection of tales gathered together in the 19th century into one epic poem by Elias Lönnrot. This explanation, which comes at Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The Red Pleasance Dome ★★★★Comic Marcus Brigstocke has spoken in the past about his addictions and now he has written this two-hander, which he directs, that goes some way to explain the constant internal dialogue he and others like him experience.Benedict has been sober for 20-odd years but faces a big emotional challenge when his father dies. On the day of his dad's funeral we see him in John's extensive cellar, where a bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild 1978, the year of his birth, awaits him, as he reads a letter from John gifting it to him.As Benedict confronts his emotions about Read more ...
David Kettle
If nothing else, Arabella Weir quips, she can thank her mother for providing the material for her first Fringe show. For Does My Mum Loom Big In This? (see what she did there) is the Fast Show and Two Doors Down actor/comedian’s reflections on motherhood, both her own to her two now twentysomething kids, but more importantly, that of her own mother – posh Scottish, Weir tells us, Oxford-educated, and permanently dissatisfied by the appearance, intellect and achievements of her disappointment of a daughter.So we duly discover the eccentricities of Weir Snr’s behaviour, from moaning about being Read more ...
Owen Richards
Life on the Welsh coast isn’t getting any easier: defendant Madlen was found guilty of murder, husband Evan was coming home from prison, and Faith had just given Steve Baldini a rather uncomfortable snog on the beach. She’s probably pining for that first series now, at least the hubby was out of the picture.In the latest episode of BBC's watercooler hit, Faith’s become entangled in a murder enquiry of her own. After running errands for local baddie Gael Reardon, one of her contacts has turned up on a morgue slab. The victim had called Faith just before his death, so it won’t be long until the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
On the Other Hand, We’re Happy Summerhall ****This affecting co-production between Paines Plough and Theatr Clywd of Daf James’s play takes a sideways look at adoption.Twentysomethings Abbi (Charlotte Bate) and Josh (Toyin Omari-Kinch) have been together for almost their entire lifetime. They’re solid, so it’s a shock when they can’t have a biological child, and they decide to adopt.The long drawn-out nature of the adoptive process is neatly essayed here, with endless discussion about what kind of child they wish/will be allowed to adopt, and the pitfalls to be avoided. One wrong step and Read more ...
Katherine Waters
Emmanuel (Anthony Ofoegbu) runs Three Kings Barbers in London. His assistant, Samuel (Mohammed Mansaray), is the son of his erstwhile business partner, who is currently in jail. Emmanuel is boss, surrogate father and — occasionally — verbal punching bag: Sam is a whizz with the shears and just as cutting with his tongue. It's not just London in which Inua Ellam's riotous play Barber Shop Chronicles — newly transferred to the Roundhouse from the National Theatre — takes place. Scenes in barber shops in Lagos, Accra, Kampala, Harare and Johannesburg intercut the action in London, where Read more ...
Katherine Waters
Light creeps under the church door. Entering as a slice of burning white, it softens and blues into the stone interior, seeming to make the walls glow from the inside. Beneath the lintel, a milder slot of sun pours upwards. To the right, a plain column, only half in the composition, supports an arch which merges with the back wall, disappearing against its horizontal plane. The chapel is empty but its stillness feels peopled. Here, absence is watchful.The Door, 1884, was painted at the Chapelle de Trémalo in Pont Aven by Finnish artist Helene Schjerfbeck. A grant from the Finnish Senate Read more ...
Saskia Baron
The intense relationship between a single parent and a single child is ramped up to its highest level when it involves a mother whose daughter has learning disabilities. From that dynamic, writer Ben Weatherill has crafted a warm, engaging and moving play about Kelly and her mum Agnes. We meet them on their daily walk along the beach in Skegness, poking at a dead crab and discussing what to wear to work. When Kelly (Sarah Gordy) takes too long fussing with her trainers, Agnes (Penny Layden) goes to help her and is met with "I’m 27-years-old, I can put my own shoes on", but she can’ Read more ...
Matt Wolf
An apocalyptic title proves somewhat of a red herring for a slight if intriguing play that returns the dream team behind Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to their erstwhile stomping ground at the Royal Court. Set across 20 years in the Newbury kitchen of a socialist family most of whom on this evidence cannot cook, Jack Thorne's play traces a familial and political bequest that takes us from the arrival of Tony Blair as PM through to the spring of 2017 and a lone reference in passing to "Brexit Britain". But quite what the author and his longtime director, John Tiffany, want us to make of a Read more ...