There Ought To Be Clowns

Review: In Basildon, Royal Court

2012-02-21T23:40:00.011-08:00

“There's no new beginnings for families like ours. And there never has been."

One of David Eldridge’s most recent previous plays - The Knot of the Heart for the Almeida – proved to be one of the most divisive I’ve experienced in terms of the response from the critics who lauded it and so many of the bloggers and audience members of my acquaintance who really did not like it at all. So when the new season at the Royal Court was announced featuring a new play by him, I was ok with not booking it as it helped me with my ‘I will cut down on the amount of theatre I see’ mantra. But then they announced the cast and as soon as I saw the names Linda Bassett and Ruth Sheen I knew that I would have to book for In Basildon. Bassett blew me away in the Arcola's undersung The Road To Mecca and Sheen is an actress whose work I have recently revisited and adored in recent MIke Leigh films, and the Leigh connection is furthered with the presence of other regular collaborators Peter Wight and Wendy Nottingham. So I was a mixture of reluctance and eager anticipation as I schlepped off to Sloane Square to catch the final preview.

Dying from prostate cancer, salt-of-the-earth Len has returned to the home he inherited from his parents as friends and family gather round his sickbed. Sister Doreen and best friend Ken lead the group but the atmosphere is shaken by the return of estranged sister Maureen who hasn't spoken to 'Dor' in nearly 20 years. As Len passes away, attention turns to his will as everyone seems to have a claim on something, including Pam from next door, Doreen's son Barry and his wife, and Shelley, Maureen's daughter and Eldridge explores the tensions that emerge from these family loyalties and how they change over time and across the generations. The complexities of sibling relationships are brutally exposed but also overlaid with a frank discussion about class and how it is intrinsically connected to location, their working-class politics shaped by hard-earned experience. Confrontational, conflicted and compelling, Eldridge's writing speaks with the darkest of humour but also the ring of a deep emotional truth. It's just a shame that the Royal Court have decided to play the 'tricksy' card with the staging.

Ian MacNeil’s design is an odd one, placing the living room in the centre of the Royal Court downstairs leaving the audience straddling the stage and thus Dominic Cooke’s direction has to constantly bear the traverse in mind. It adds nothing to the performance – the stage is still elevated so it is not as if we’re in the living room with them – and has a strange impact on key scenes. The play opens with Len on his deathbed, but the combination of the bedhead and his head being slightly raised means that only the people on the backstage side (like us) can see him (though he doesn’t do much, aside from splutter a little as he leaves this mortal coil); and then later on at the reading of the will, Ken plonks his chair down facing the usual theatre side and delivers the news exclusively to that side of the theatre. My heart sank when this happened – as a lip reader it made things much more difficult for me as there’s only so much Peter Wight can say with his back – but the plus side is that we got to see the faces of every other character as they responded to the news and this actually came close to making up for it: the eager anticipation of all, the glares between the sisters and the scorn directed by both at Ken, the look of triumph on Tom’s face as Pam gets her share – it just seems a shame that it has to be an either/or thing.

For quibbles about the staging aside, the acting is simply sensational from all angles. Sheen and Bassett crackle against each other, their enmity horribly palpable as they spit venom at each other; Lee Ross as the gorgeously appealing Barry is such a comforting presence on the stage even as he rails against a world that hasn’t quite worked out for him, especially with a strident Debbie Chazen as his wife, bolshily determined to push his mother out of the picture once they finally get pregnant; Jade Williams convinces as graduate teacher Shelley who is keen to forget her roots and I loved Max Bennett’s Tom, a middle-class sore thumb in this household whose drink-fuelled liberal guilt is hilariously played yet cleverly makes its point about the assumptions that are often made about the working classes and notions of popular culture, especially in Wendy Nottingham’s exquisitely detailed Pam.

Not everything worked about the show for me, it should be said. The introduction of a drunken vicar was a comic step too far (his pratfall far too clearly signposted with the unforgiving staging so it was no surprise to anyone on our side of the theatre) and somewhat unnecessary in the end; the final act that skips back in time to uncover the source of the long-held enmity explains perhaps a little too much than is strictly needed and Shelley as a character feels ripe for a little more involvement in matters, as the one who did manage to sever her ties to the area and is much more ambivalent about it than anyone else. But there’s so much to enjoy here, along with Sheen and Bassett, Peter Wight gives a stunning performance as the jovial Ken, there’s a lovely reminder of Walthamstow dog track and the inimitable Charlie Chan’s and the kind of investigation of the working classes that is so rarely makes it onto the bigger stages in London. And I also loved that I ultimately gave Eldridge the chance to change my mind – too often I hear people state definitively that they don’t like this type of theatre or that playwright, I’ve been guilty of it myself, but I always try to keep an open mind and in the past couple of weeks Filter and now Eldridge have confounded my expectations, so I heartily recommend In Basildon even if, perhaps especially if, you weren’t a fan of The Knot of the Heart.

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes (with interval)

Playtext cost: £3

Booking until 24th March

Review: Artist Descending A Staircase, Criterion

2012-02-21T14:57:00.000-08:00

“Imagination without skill gives us modern art”

Home to the long-running The 39 Steps (which I still haven’t quite gotten round to seeing yet), the Criterion Theatre has been expanding its programming both with late-evening and afternoon events. This Tuesday afternoon saw a performance of Tom Stoppard’s radio play Artist Descending A Staircase by such an attractive cast that it was impossible to resist. The play was performed in front of us to a microphone, although I couldn’t quite figure out whether this was being recorded for real or not, and sound effects created onstage so it was just like watching a radio play being recorded rather than something being acted out and was most amusing with it – not least because we got to see the actors in their civvies and see what their fashion sense is like!

But to the play itself: we open with a scratchy recording of undetermined sounds and soon find ourselves in an attic studio shared by three elderly avant-garde artists with two of them standing over the body of the third at the bottom of the staircase. Beauchamp is the one who made the recording as his art centres on the sounds of everyday life and as he and his colleague Martello hear their dead friend Donner acknowledge the presence of something just before his fall, they each point the finger of suspicion at the other.

In a series of flashbacks both to the recent cantankerous past and way back in their history to the birth of their shared artistic ideal, we see how their relationship has progressed and developed, especially with the arrival of Sophie, a blind woman who caught the affections of all three of them in different ways. Stoppard looks at how our own senses can work against us as well as the fallibility of our own memories which can have huge repercussions for both love and life.

As the older trio, Oliver Cotton, James Fleet and Tim McInnerny had most of the best lines and had great fun with them too as they bitched about the bad habits of the others, groused about their artistic choices and generally grumbled their way through life. Their younger counterparts Henry Lloyd Hughes, James Northcote and Ed Bennett respectively had a slightly more difficult task in convincing us of their earnestness but all did well and were significantly helped in the most unlikely of ways, by Stoppard actually writing with genuine heartfelt emotion for his characters for once and Northcote in particular seizes on this to create a most moving portrayal.

As the sole woman, the ever-marvellous Katherine Parkinson was excellent as Sophie, the recently blind woman whose journey in the play is marked by its own tragedy, and her voice is so expressive and melodious that it is ideally suited to just listen to. Most of the actors helped out with the creation of sound effects for all manner of things and in all manner of ways, but special mention has to go to Spot Stage Manager Alison Mckenzie who did much of the work and Sam Hodges’ direction marshalled all the elements together perfectly. I believe other events are planned for this lunchtime slot so keep your eye out for the future as this was a highly enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes or so.

Review: Second Blast – Present Dangers, Tricycle

2012-02-19T18:56:00.000-08:00

“There are over 200 countries in the world and only 8, maybe 9 have nuclear weapons”

The second part of the Tricycle’s The Bomb – a partial history is named Second Blast: Present Dangers and focuses its attention on where the nuclear threat lies now, i.e. in the Middle East and North Korea. Alongside the five plays, there’s more of the verbatim reportage, edited by Richard Norton-Taylor, in this section, effectively deployed to demonstrate the almost ridiculousness of the way in which the debate about Iran and nuclear capability has been framed the US and Israel, and later on to remind us of the official political positions of many of our own leaders in the UK.

Altogether I was a tiny bit disappointed with this half of the day (I’d’ve given it 3.5 stars as opposed to 4 for Part 1) as First Blast: Proliferation had cast its net far and wide to cover five different aspects of the history of the bomb but Second Blast returned time and time again to Iran (3 times in fact) in terms of the present day. Obviously it’s a massive part of where we are in terms of potential instability, but I felt that a more useful eye could have been cast elsewhere as well – in a savage indictment of those countries like Israel and Pakistan who still refuse to sign up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or indeed a more damning look at those countries that have signed yet show no signs of reducing their stockpile.

As with the first part First Blast: Proliferation, I’ve written about each play separately, so click on the links for There Was A Man. There Was No Man by Colin Teevan, Axis by Diana Son, Talk Talk Fight Fight by Ryan Craig, The Letter of Last Resort by David Greig and From Elsewhere: On the Watch... by Zinnie Harris.

Once again there was great delight in seeing the company stretching themselves in different roles: Paul Bhattacharjee probably wins for being amazing and incredibly hard-working, but Belinda Lang and Nathalie Armin run him a close second and there really were no weak links for me. Polly Sullivan’s simple design allows great flexibility and Douglas O’Connell’s video work was also used extremely well on the panels that divide the back of the stage.

The Bomb – a partial history makes an excellent final entry into Nicolas Kent’s work at the Tricycle Theatre and leaves Indhu Rubasingham with quite the challenge in filling his boots. It may waver in the quality of the writing from time to time but nothing lasts long enough to outstay its welcome and something amazing like David Greig’s The Letter of Last Resort in part 2 and Amit Gupta’s Option in Part 1 is never far away, making this a crucially important and fascinating piece of epic theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes (with interval)

Programme cost: £5 (covers both parts)

Booking until 1st April

Review: There Was A Man. There Was No Man

2012-02-19T18:53:00.000-08:00

“Ethics are all very well from the safety of Switzerland”

In some ways Colin Teevan’s There Was A Man. There Was No Man ought to have been the most powerfully resonant piece in the second part of the Tricycle’s The Bomb – a partial history given the heightened tension around the Iranian nuclear programme and the ever-present antagonism with Israel.

The official blurb is as follows. ‘While Israel officially has no nuclear arms programme, few doubt it has; Iran claims this gives it the right to develop its own nuclear programme. Who will be the first to blink? When an Israeli and Iranian scientist meet at a conference in Jordan, their meeting has deep repercussions for their nations, their families and themselves.’

In the course of two meetings, one in Zurich in the aftermath of an assassination of an Iranian scientist and one in Tehran a few days before but immediately after, we get a taste of the intensely bitter and paranoid relationship between Israel and Iran and see just how far each is prepared to go in the face of their suspicions of the other.

But clunky expositionary dialogue and a rather flat set-up meant that it never really engaged me and I have to admit it passed me by without much impact. I suspect I needed perhaps more of a perk-up to start the second half of the day and get me energised – this sadly did not give me this.

Review: Axis

2012-02-19T18:51:00.000-08:00

“Hungry as they are, they are proud to be North Korean and not American puppets”

Even within the constraints of a short piece of drama, playwrights often think and write big, but not always to the greatest effect, and so it felt a little bit with Diana Son’s Axis, one of the plays making up the second part of the Tricycle’s The Bomb – a partial history. Starting off in a White House strategy room, two advisers try to come up with a sexy soundbite that will help sell Dubya’s aggressive post 9/11 strategy, we then flip ten years into the future in North Korea where two members of the government discuss what things might be like under their new inexperienced leader Kim Jong-Un.

Both sections have their merits: the idea that something as powerful and definitive as the ‘Axis of Evil’ rhetoric is something that could have been whipped by speech-writers and spin doctors has a horribly persuasive currency but it felt a lost opportunity for the revelation that this policy threw away the considerable diplomatic efforts of the previous administration who had come close to buying out the North Koreans’ nuclear programme in exchange for aid to just be used as a post-script caption. And where the 2012 discussion of the huge uncertainty around their untried new leader does look at the repercussions of this hardening of the position on both sides, especially on worsening the poverty in North Korea, there’s an almost slapstick tone which undermined the seriousness of the subject.

Overall, Axis felt like the beginnings of something interesting that could potentially be excellent but didn’t quite have the right level of effectiveness in its current form – the frustration coming because so much of what it needed is in there, it just needs a little tweaking for me. Despite myself, I found Simon Chandler and David Yip’s Korean old guard members generally very funny and the piece as a whole was always easy to watch.

Review: Talk Talk Fight Fight

2012-02-19T18:49:00.000-08:00

“We need to find a wrecking ball”

Ryan Craig’s Talk Talk Fight Fight emerged as one of the better pieces of the second part of the Tricycle’s The Bomb – a partial history for me. An intelligent look at life in the negotiations rooms at the United Nations as an EU delegation prepare to try and consult on nuclear non-proliferation with an Iran who are being less than upfront about their nuclear development. Their determination to remain reasonable and diplomatic is then challenged with the arrival of a brash CIA agent with an Iranian nuclear scientist in tow, but whose reliability is questioned in different ways by different people.

Craig captures perfectly the frustrations of bureaucrats and activists having to dance around the obfuscations of the Iranians, deflect the determination of some to make a case for war, and all the time ensure they are observing international law down to the very last clause. Shereen Martin and Daniel Rabin excel here as two workers each passionately devoted to the cause, as does Belinda Lang who was almost unrecognisable as a Baroness Ashton (of UpHolland, the village of my birth doncha know)-like figure who has to skip from meeting to meeting, from nuclear disarmament to trade debates about fish at the drop of a hat.

Set against these is the initial interrogation of the Iranian scientist by David Yip’s CIA agent and these scenes are cleverly woven in as he gives his account of what is actually happening in Iran as he tries to secure his own safety: Paul Bhattacharjee continuing an excellent run of form in so many of these plays.

Review: The Letter of Last Resort

2012-02-19T18:47:00.000-08:00

“Onboard a submarine, there’s a safe. Inside that safe there’s another safe. And inside that one is a letter.”

Probably my favourite section in the second part of the Tricycle’s The Bomb – a partial history was David Greig’s The Letter of Last Resort. Simon Chandler’s civil servant is pressuring Belinda Lang’s newly installed Prime Minister to put contingency arrangements in place in case of a (nuclear) catastrophe yet as she decides what course of action is to be taken in response to whatever attack has taken place, she is pulled down into a swirl of contradictory absurdist logic.

Greig’s writing is sharply observed and extremely funny – especially in the revelation of just how the submarine commander will ascertain if Britain has been destroyed – but it also has real heart as this PM comes to terms with the gravity of the decision she has to make. Lang plays this excellently, her determination to not let her position rob her of her humanity slowly worn down by the devil’s advocate of Simon Chandler’s adviser who is always able to offer the bigger picture about what must be done as opposed to what is right.

The way in which Chandler combines a excellently dry wit with a deeply intelligent patience, even whilst forced into a roleplay situation, really makes us pay attention and see that beyond the officiousness lies an understanding that as intolerable as they may seem to some, these decisions simply have to be made given our determination to hold onto a nuclear arsenal, however reduced, and that in order to be effective - “the only rational way to behave is to be irrational”.

Review: From Elsewhere: On the Watch...

2012-02-19T18:42:00.000-08:00

“A door always leads to somewhere”

The final piece in the second part of the Tricycle’s The Bomb – a partial history returns to Zinnie Harris with From Elsewhere: On the Watch... where she revisits her characters of Frisch and Peierls from the opening From Elsewhere: a message... The scientists who did so much to advance the initial discoveries around nuclear technology have now been reincarnated as weapons inspectors in Iran who are confronted with the reality of what has been wrought with the revelations that came from their laboratory.

It’s a little heavy-handed in places and again doesn’t really possess much dramatic pull, but ultimately there is much that works about it. Daniel Rabin and Rick Warden has genuine chemistry as old friends who know each other inside out; there’s a deep recognition of the futility of much of the process of inspection, and the sense of unity that comes from revisiting this pair makes as neat an ending as one could have hoped for in such a hugely complex area as is covered altogether here.

And indeed, the first introduction of the chilling sight of protective suits serves as a powerful reminder of how terrifying a threat nuclear attack is. It may seem that the direct danger to us has receded but as one of those very few countries with nuclear capabilities and tensions elsewhere ever rising and seemingly unresolvable, this reminds us that our complacency could well be misplaced.

Review: First Blast - Proliferation, Tricycle

2012-02-19T11:14:00.000-08:00

"Gentlemen, let the race begin"

Nicolas Kent's final hurrah at the Tricycle Theatre, which he has patiently nurtured into fine battling form as a theatre really at the cutting edge of hot-topic drama, is this multi-authored two-part epic - The Bomb - a partial history. Inviting nine authors to respond to the debate (or more accurately the lack thereof) around nuclear weapons, Kent has pieced together a stimulating and challenging piece of theatre, divided into two parts, which can be experienced separately on different nights or one after the other on certain days, in a seven-hour marathon, which is how I did it (and probably how I'd recommend to it).

Part one is labelled First Blast: Proliferation and focuses on the period 1940-1992 as nuclear weapons became a horrendous reality as Japan found out to its cost and then a terrible threat to all as the Cold War descended between the superpowers of the USA and the USSR, and more and more countries sought to gain nuclear capabilities for themselves, threatening imbalances right across the globe. The attempts to control the spread of nuclear weaponry is also dealt with as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty came into being and international pressure exerted to try and bring everyone into the fold.

I've reviewed each of the five plays that made up this first part separately, so you can click on the links to read more about Zinnie Harris' From Elsewhere: the message..., Ron Hutchinson's Calculated Risk, Lee Blessing's Seven Joys, Amit Gupta's Option and John Donnelly's Little Russians. I will say that I found First Blast: Proliferation to be the stronger of the two halves, the exploration of the (unknown to me) history of Indian nuclear development being particularly fascinating and the investigation of the arrogant assumptions of the superpowers that they could control nuclear weaponry across the globe also very well done.

There is much pleasure in seeing a company work across a set of short plays like these, one gets to see them stretch the acting muscles in front of our very eyes, Paul Bhattacharjee, Daniel Rabin and Tariq Jordan all impressed me immensely in what is a very male-heavy bit of theatre. I also liked the echoes of connections that emerged between the plays - all written separately - both forward and back as facts and names and events reappeared and joined up some of the dots and increase understanding and enhance the whole experience. As a self-declared partial history, it can only illuminate part of the story, but what it does shed light on is done with sensitivity, variety and explosive verve.

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes (with interval)
Programme cost: £5 (for both parts)
Booking until 1st April

Review: From Elsewhere: the message...

2012-02-19T11:08:00.000-08:00

"One kilo, a bag of sugar...you could make a bomb with THAT"

Set in a Whitehall antechamber in 1940, the opening play in the first part of the Tricycle's The Bomb - a partial history is Zinnie Harris' From Elsewhere: the message... Scientists Rudolf Peierls and Otto Frisch have been conducting research in their laboratory in Birmingham looking at the discoveries of other people working in the field of trying achieve effective nuclear fission and hit upon a massive discovery. But as they wait to be admitted to the War Committee to give their revelation which has the potential to utterly change the course of the war, doubts creep in as to whether they, two expat Germanic Jews will be taken seriously.

What emerges is an intermittently fascinating tale that takes us through the early years of nuclear research and the slow realisation of the terrible power that the work that these physicists are carrying out will wield in the wrong hands. The race for knowledge was happening in several places, but it was Peierls' fleeing from Germany where he had been working with the world-leader in atomic research Niel Bohr and subsequently sharing his knowledge with Frisch's own advances that proved the critical moment. This is all described rather entertainingly, interspersed with their nervousness at having such a responsibility on their hands in such an unfriendly environment - as underlined by Simon Chandler's sniffy clerk.

Rick Warden and Daniel Rabin both brought wonderfully nerdish life to their characters, as men completely unused to the stuffy, dusty surroundings of the corridors of power and the ridiculous strictness of archaic English bureaucracy and overall, the piece did its job well if wearing its slightness a little too much at times. Though once you have seen the second half of the whole experience, it does make a lot more sense as Harris has written the final piece of the seconf half of the evening which seeks to bring everything round full circle.

Review: Calculated Risk

2012-02-19T11:07:00.000-08:00

"Could it be possible that war becomes so terrible that it outlaws itself?"

Ron Hutchinson's Calculated Risk, the second play in the first half of the Tricycle's The Bomb - a partial history, is an excellent debate on the morality and the reality of adopting a nuclear weapons programme. Set in the second half of 1945, the play focuses on Clement Atlee's dilemma as he came into power as Prime Minister just days before the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a move sanctioned by Churchill's government, and was put under pressure to decide on what Great Britain's nuclear policy would be.

The main part of the piece is a sustained discussion between Attlee and his key advisors: Field Marshal Grierson, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and scientist William Penney who are each pursuing their own agendas, and following their own instincts, in debating this huge issue. And Hutchinson spells it all out with great clarity, pitting the inevitability of scientific advance against ethics and the notion of free will, the morality of choosing an option that would undoubtedly result in huge civilian loss of life against the political expediency of warning potential enemies of what they might face.

Bookended by scenes which illuminate the dance of power between the UK and the US in terms of knowing exactly what the other is up to and how they have progressed, Calculated Risk was gripping from start to finish. Michael Cochrane's rather equitable Attlee acting more as a moderator in the debate with Simon Chandler excelling as the military man passionately against a weapon that could only be used in response to the ascertaining of a probability of attack and Rick Warden bringing a scientist's cold analytical logic to his answers.

Review: Seven Joys

2012-02-19T11:05:00.000-08:00

"No more kimchi for you"

Lee Blessing's Seven Joys was the first introduction of an (initally) light-hearted note into the Tricycle's The Bomb - a partial history. Set in a members' club in Washington DC, the metaphor of exclusive membership to an institution is used extremely effectively to show the impossibility of maintaining exclusivity of something that is hugely desired, especially when that something is nuclear capability.

As loud American Cal revels in his club for one, helped out by faithful butler Harry, the calm atmopshere is shattered by the arrival of the blundering Russian Slava, who brings with him his symbol of eligibility of membership - a glowing egg and his Chinese chef. But as they discuss how they intend to control what it is that they possess, it turns out that their staff have now managed to become 'members' too - China and Britain, along with their friend Marianne, France.

These five then set about trying to set the rules for the rest of the world, but their arrogance is assuming that they can, and indeed should be able to do this, is soon exposed as the rest of the kitchen staff each find their own back door into the club - India, Pakistan, North Korea etc, showing the hypocrisy of so much of the politicking that goes on between countries as these five big players are not at all above bending their (self-imposed) rules for any amount of political currency.

Blessing's construct is a simple one but proves deadly effective in illuminating the power games in the rush to gain nuclear programmes and the naïveté of those that thought it was something that they could control. Rick Warden and Simon Rouse as the representatives of the USA and USSR respectively were both excellent but David Yip's meddling Wei entertained the most as the late-to-the-party China who ends up pretty much ruling the roost.

Review: Option

2012-02-19T11:04:00.000-08:00

"How can security not be our agenda"

Amit Gupta's Option was my favourite of the plays that made up the first part of the Tricycle's The Bomb - a partial history , and probably the best of the entire collection. It centres on the debates and soul-searching of three Indian nuclear scientists in 1968: Professor Akram representing the past and a link to Gandhi's founding principles, Dr Mishra a member of the government negotiating the extremely tricky waters around the intense pressure to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Prakash an idealistic young man whose scientific passion promises much for the future.

As China tests its own nuclear weapons and bitter enemy Pakistan increases its efforts to secure its own, India found itself torn between looking after the security of its own nation and succumbing to the international pressure to agree to the US/Soviet Union pact that would see them back down from arming. The geopolitics of the history of nuclear whatnot is normally most focused on the key players of the USA and USSR with little consideration for the realities on the ground in countries caught in their own mini-Cold Wars.

I found this to be an utterly engrossing and fascinating piece of drama, the subject matter one that was new to me but rich in potential as it really threw up the dilemma faced by India, a country that had only recently gained its hard-earned independence but was instantly thrust into regional conflict. And it is this clash of idealism and pragmatism that just seemed so much more tragically moving here than I ever would have expected, mainly due to the even-handedness of Gupta's characterisations, perhaps a little archetypal but so much more convincing in their arguments because of it.

The way in which the optimism of Paul Bhattacharjee's grizzled Professor is ground down, as the suspicions of the time fall even on such a patriot as he, is beautifully done; the handsome Tariq Jordan essays the earnestness of the brilliant young Prakash perfectly; and Shereen Martin brings a deep compassion to Divya, the former student of the Professor who is desperately looking for a middle ground for all parties so that their work on civil nuclear engineering isn't lost.

Review: Little Russians

2012-02-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

"What's the message, that we're nutters?!"

The final play in the first half of the Tricycle’s The Bomb was John Donnelly’s Little Russians, a black comedy about a Ukrainian family looking to make a quick buck selling the decrepit nuclear missile abandoned in their back yard after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Brothers Yuri and Andrei do a deal with wandering Russian soldier Vladimir to use his contacts to sell the weapon on the black market but his eye is caught by their mother Irina who then makes her own arrangement with Vlad. And when the arms dealer finally arrives, they all try to double-cross each other in order to get the best deal but the Russian/American joint force hunting for the missing missile are getting ever closer all the time.

With its outright comedic tone – the Ukrainians are given Irish accents here and there’s more than a hint of Father Ted mentalness – Little Russians felt really quite different to the rest of the works we had seen in responding in this manner. The disintegration of the USSR created unwitting nuclear states in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine who were quick to wield the bargaining card of security against Russia rather than surrendering them for decommissioning and with opportunistic mercenaries on the make in lawless tranches of the country, they posed a serious threat.

But instead Donnelly keeps things light with this almost farcical family clowning about with petty rivalries constantly coming into play and little sense of real danger about the whole thing. Tariq Jordan and Rick Warden carry off the swaggering brothers well as their ridiculousness is exposed time and time again but Nathalie Armin struggles as their mother in a comparatively poorly written part. Even when Daniel Rabin’s Dennis the Chechen, his manic eyes suggest humour rather than terror and whilst this was not an unwelcome emotion to be feeling given the scope of the whole day, it felt slightly at odds with it all and a curious way to finish the first half.

Review: Sasha Regan’s All Male Patience, Union

2012-02-18T23:17:00.000-08:00

"There is more innocent fun within me than the casual spectator might allow"

The all-male Gilbert and Sullivan adaptations at the Union Theatre have become something of an annual institution now and though we've been kept waiting a few more months than usual, the next instalment has arrived with Patience or Bunthorne's Bride. Last year's Iolanthe was exceptionally good and I rather enjoyed The Pirates of Penzance the year before so it was safe to say that expectations were rather high for this, but this was a show I knew nothing of beforehand - my love for G+S being mainly limited to the film of Pirates... which I watched over and over again as a child.

Patience is a satirical look at the aesthetic movement (yeah, me neither) which was a fashionable movement of the 1880s that preached devotion to the arts and lofty ideals of love as a duty rather than a pleasure. We follow Reginald and Archibald as they both pursue a milkmaid named Patience, whilst a group of ladies swoon over the aesthetically minded pair of gents and ignore the returning bumptious soldiers to whom they were engaged the previous year. Gentle fun is poked at everyone as attentions shift from man to man and the hapless soldiers are left trying to become aesthetes themselves in order to win back their feckless ladies.

The usual high standards of the Union are maintained here: Regan's direction utilises the space well in the configuration that is seemingly becoming their default with seating in three banks along the width of the auditorium; Drew McOnie's choreography has a wry humour about it which picks up much of the lyrical wordplay and translates it into witty routines which fill the room; and Kingsley Hall's design is a foppish, floral, flowing flourish of homemade charm. Richard Bates’ musical direction from behind his piano keeps a tight rein on the ensemble, whose vocal talents really do stretch up the range without ever seeming strained.

But for all the silly joyousness that occasionally shines through in this production, I couldn’t help but wonder if this is a conceit which is being stretched a little too thin now. Iolanthe worked magically with the ingenious concept of boys playing dress-up which meant one could read all sorts of meaning into their journeys of discovery and The Pirates of Penzance really benefitted from the contrast of buccaneers and maidens. But here the single-sex casting doesn’t really add anything, the shallowness of the narrative means little emotion can be generated, and the exaggeration that comes from poking fun at the aesthetic movement means that for once, the charge of camping it up could be laid at the door here and that hasn’t previously been the case.

Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh because I didn’t feel Patience rivalled my previous experiences here, though I don’t think anyone could claim this is a classic piece of G+S as neither the score not the book ever quite lift off in all honesty, but it is still a highly enjoyable experience nevertheless. Stiofàn O’Doherty’s gallivanting ‘Archibald the Alright’ is a vision in tight white jodphurs and possessed of an unexpectedly purring baritone, Sean Quigley’s plain Jane and James Lacey’s Angela both navigate potentially tricky characterisations with consummate ease and Edward Simpson delivers the customary patter song with panache. The Union may have maintained a tradition with this production of patience but I suspect they will have to work just a little harder next year to justify its continued existence.

Running time: 2 hours (with interval)
Programme cost: £2
Booking until 10th March

Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Filter at Lyric Hammersmith

2012-02-16T22:26:00.002-08:00

“I’m going to do an abstract version”

With the best will in the world, it is hard not to carry opinions with you and this is particularly true in the theatre. In the name of attempting to be open-minded, I have continued to plug away at Ibsen in the hope that one day his work might click with me, but truth be told my heart sinks when productions of his work are mentioned. And despite their sterling reputation and rave reviews, Filter’s work has previously left me a little cold, moving the head rather than the heart, so as I filled in at the last minute for a reviewer who dropped out, there was a little reluctance as I waited for the curtain to rise on their production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Lyric Hammersmith.

Filter are a company whose reinterpretations of classic texts, as well as the creation of new work, burst with creativity and great imagination as they explore the theatrical potential offered by a radical approach to sound. But for me, that hasn't always been matched with a similiar attention to story-telling - so Silence, Water and Twelfth Night were not my favourite moments in a theatre. Suffice to say though that in this case, whilst purists may baulk at this treatment of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Filter succeeded in smashing my preconceptions and entertaining me most thoroughly indeed.

There’s so much inventiveness at work here, a determination to ensure that laughs come from the most unexpected of angles, that the production often feels less like a Shakespeare adaptation than an anarchic comedy session. This is reinforced by Ed Gaughan’s opening stand-up routine/introduction/compering of the night as Peter Quince, deliciously irreverent to cast and latecomers alike and sets the scene for the raucous fun ahead.

And what fun there is. Most of the joy will come from the sheer randomness of what happens and how it happens and so little will be revealed here. I will share some of things which made me laugh the most though: the way in which Bottom is cast, the abuse that Alan Pagan’s Snug gets, the mouthiness of the First Fairy, Oberon’s catching a flower, the way in which the fairies’ invisibility is played on throughout, John Lightbody’s every movement as a sinuous Lysander, the list is huge! Jonathan Broadbent’s Oberon is simply inspired in its petulant ridiculousness and Ferdy Robert’s burly roadie of a Puck is highly charismatic. And it may seem at times that the story is incidental to the onstage antics, but the keynotes that emerge are indeed some of those which underpin Shakespeare’s writing: the power of transformation and the manipulation of passion and its loving and lustful effects on both those who are controlled and those who would control.

But all for the madness, there are also moments of beautiful clarity: the first entry into fairyland is gorgeously essayed with the most unlikely of substances, and key sections of verse are given sensitive readings that strike home all the more effectively for their quietness. And the archetypal ingenuity we’ve come to expect with the sound effects is brilliantly done but never allowed to overshadow the actual business of story-telling which has sometimes crept in before. Occasionally, moments go on a tad too long – I personally didn’t care too much for the rock songs – and the way Pyramus and Thisbe is staged pulls us out of the production a little too much rather than connecting with the story of the play. But these are minor quibbles, and if you start to pull at that thread too much, you’d be in danger of missing the whole point.

It often seems to be considered a crime to want to enjoy oneself at the theatre, the recent flurry of successful comedies has to be characterised as a response to these straitened times, but I suspect that this is just an attempt to fill column inches. Theatre can delve into darkness and serious issues with the most extraordinary effectiveness, but it is also a flexible medium that can tickle the ribs as well as the grey matter and whether the economy is booming or going bust, the desire to sometimes just have a great laugh on a night out remains constant. This Dream may be uncomplicated, and sometimes irreverent, but never less than belly-achingly delightful. And in completely confounding my expectations, it pleasingly challenged my preconceptions and reminded me that it is totally worth trying things out even if you’re not sure you’ll like them.

Running time: 1 hours 45 minutes (without interval)

Programme cost: I don’t know, but it is an annoying A4 foldout thing

Booking until 17th March

Originally reviewed for The Public Reviews

Review: The Way of the World, Crucible

2012-02-15T23:26:00.000-08:00

“I'm in a maze yet, like a dog in a dancing-school”

I doubt I could have named a single Restoration comedy for you even just a few months ago but trends in theatre change as endlessly as in fashion, and I now find myself having seen three already this year. Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre get in on the act with this revival of William Congreve’s The Way of the World (ahead of Chichester who are putting it on as part of this year’s festival) from 1700, following my trips to the Donmar’s The Recruiting Officer (1706) and the National’s She Stoops to Conquer (1773).

Lyndsey Turner’s production here though is the only one of these that has taken major liberties with the play, in this case setting in the modern day where ‘Restoration’ is a new trend that has swept society. At its simplest, the plot follows the young Mirabell who is courting the delicious Millament, yet comes up against her formidable aunt Lady Wishfort who is set against the match and threatens to withhold her fortune, which many others have their eye on and are willing to commit dastardly deeds to get it. But the play is rarely that simple, and with the directorial device at play, I must admit it challenged me just a little (and made me wish I’d read a synopsis beforehand).

The production as a whole though is a joy to behold. The cast is sensationally good from top to bottom: Deborah Findlay’s Lady Wishfort reinforces her Dame-to-be credentials with superlative comic skill underlaid with a deeply compassionate portrayal of a woman who refuses to be shut away, and Samuel Barnett continues to develop a most intriguing body of work as the foppish Witwoud, giving a masterclass in the art of precise line delivery and economy of movement that slays the audience with a mere word or raised eyebrow. Leo Bill simmers with a barely suppressed viciousness that made me long to see him in something properly modern; Sinéad Matthews revels in the GaGa-inspired quirkiness of Millament; Richard Goulding gives a great hawing English gent as Wilful and Ben Lloyd Hughes makes an impressive debut as the rakish Mirabell.

And Naomi Wilkinson’s stage and costume design mean that this is never less than stunningly sumptuous to look at. Dresses are haute-couture fabulous with cheeky nods back to its original context, and the wide white set converts effortlessly to traverse the many locations where society both see and are seen, and also go about keeping the doors shut to maintain their precious reputations. Turner keeps the pulse fresh and modern, whether through the filming of music videos, characters DJ-ing or in one glorious moment, singing The Edge of Glory and so there is no doubting the pure entertainment value of this show.

Dramatically though, it proves a little challenging as the focus of the production is not always on providing clarity where it is needed – especially to someone unfamiliar with the play – and there were moments where the language didn’t quite flow with the naturalism that one would have liked to really pull us into the narrative and connect strongly with it. But there’s so much to enjoy here, Barnett and Findlay give performances that ought to rank with some of the best recent comic work of the past few years, that I have to recommend this strongly – Chichester, consider the bar raised.

Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes (with interval)
Booking until 25th February

Television Review: BBC HD Film Shorts

2012-02-15T17:20:00.000-08:00

“Why won’t you listen to me”

A bit of random thing that only came to my attention because of a kind soul on Twitter, this collection of five short films from the last few years presented by the BBC Film Network and BBC HD, offered the opportunity to notch up bonus appearances from Andrew Scott and Rafe Spall, as well as appreciating some up and coming filmmaking talent.

Scott’s film is Silent Things in which he plays Jake, a guy with Asperger’s who strikes up an unlikely camaraderie with a quirky teenager, Georgia Groome’s Amy who challenges him to test his boundaries with mixed results and which in turn also threatens his friendship with Charlotte, also autistic and who resents the closeness that Jake is able to achieve with others. Written by Rob Brown and Edward Jackson, it is small but perfectly formed and elevated by all three performances from its leads, not just Scott. Predictably he is excellent, unshaven and more unkempt than we’re used to seeing him, his is a performance of great subtlety leading us to empathise strongly with Jake’s predicament. Antonia Campbell-Hughes’ Charlotte suffers more severely and so is less able to socialise, her bluntness still sensitively portrayed though and the self-determined drive neatly suggested. Groome is also good and altogether, it made for an engaging short piece.

Modern Life is Rubbish was also amongst my favourites here, Rafe Spall and Rebecca Night starring as a recently split-up couple who are going through the traumatic experience of dividing their music collection and ruminating on their relationship, their potential future friendship and what might have been. It is very well written, Philip Gawthorne picking up on so many of the tiny awkward details like attending the same social events after the split, being brutally honest about the things you didn’t like about the other and the ease with which one can fall back into intimacy without even thinking about it. And well performed too, Spall’s traditional music obsessive railing against greatest hits collections and the very existence of the iPod, his bluffness not quite able to mask his breaking heart as Rebecca Night tries to remain pragmatic as the one who has moved out and so not wanting to spend any more time there than is necessary.

The other 3 films were not quite as successful for me, and not just because they didn’t have actors I particularly like, honest! Stephanie Zari and Samantha Whitaker’s Marigolds tried a little too hard for my liking, both pushing it with its subject matter of an over-bearing mother who se relationship to her son is close to unnatural and threatens to spill over when he returns home for a visit, and with Zari’s direction which is overly arty without real effect, the final tracking shot felt painful too me. Jane Guernier is intriguing as the mother but too little is left unsaid or unexplored to really make it work. Babak Anvari’s Bafta-nominated Two and Two is a slightly surreal fable of a tale set in a (Iranian?) school where the regime institute unreasonable change with tragic consequences but it was a little too obscure for me. Chris Dundon’s Bro was the best of the rest, a sweetly affirming drama of a young teenager trapped on a dull council estate and overburdened with the responsibility of caring for his brother who is suffering from Fragile X syndrome as his mother goes out to work leaving him to cope.

So who knows why these five were lumped together, but they were an entertaining bunch and at about 15 minutes each, never long enough to really test the patience if you weren’t enjoying them. Fans of Spall and Scott should enjoy this a lot, as should most of you to be honest, but be quick, it’s only on the iPlayer for another couple of days.

Review: The Recruiting Officer, Donmar Warehouse

2012-02-13T23:49:00.000-08:00

“There’s a pleasure sure, in being mad, which none but mad-men know”

Josie Rourke’s inaugural season as Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse starts off with the Donmar’s first ever Restoration comedy – George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer. Written in 1706, it is also well known as the play that is rehearsed by the convicts in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good and Rourke has assembled a truly impressive cast in order to make a splash with her debut. Plotwise, it is mainly about men who go ‘huzzah’ a lot as they try to recruit the young men of Shrewsbury into the army, balanced with two central romances which are negotiating the impact of a big inheritance on female romantic inclinations.

It’s a whole lot of bawdy fun rather than making any serious points about anything if one is brutally honest, but it is totally made by the quality of the cast. Tobias Menzies exudes charisma as the bounding Captain Plume, well partnered by Mackenzie Crook’s Sergeant Kite, and together they brazenly try to wheedle their way into the sense of duty of the male populace and sweep them off to war. Completely amoral but largely quite funny about it, the scene with the faux crystal ball reader is extremely well done, Nicholas Burns’ demonstrating some nifty moves as gentleman Worthy, and many a laugh is garnered. Most of them come though from the friendly(ish) rivalry with Captain Brazen, a rival recruiting officer who is well portrayed as Mark Gatiss nearly steals the show with an outrageously foppish performance: his vocal delivery at one crucial point was just delicious.

In her first major role since giving birth to her second child, Nancy Carroll is everything one would want from her as Sylvia (even if we have seen her disguise herself as a man before) who is determined to get her man Plume by any means, but tragically isn’t given anywhere near enough stage time; and Rachael Stirling, a woman who I find most alluring indeed, does what she can with Melinda, the vain heiress who is unfortunately given to the odd malapropism and pratfall which feels a little like over-egging the pudding as her rich tones deliver much comedy with her affected accent and her dancing around the affections of Worthy who has long been chasing her and Brazen, who would court her.

But something didn’t quite work for me in the production as a whole, caveats about final previews aside. The play has a lot of sub-plot related baggage which occasionally felt clunky and generally a bit unnecessary; Lucy Osborne’s design is replete with candles and I mean replete as the theatre is full of them – the heat was close to unbearable for the first half hour, but one gradually gets accustomed to it – which though initially pretty, has little obvious relevance to the performance and takes the whole back wall out of action, which in turn limits Rourke’s directorial choices where I craved more imaginative use of the space.

And whilst the talents of the actor-musician band are indisputable, I couldn’t help but feel they were not particularly well suited to this production. Taking song lyrics from the eighteenth century, Michael Bruce has set music to them, much as he did for Much Ado About Nothing but atmospheric as they are, there’s a real sense of them slowing the production down, ultimately they add little. Indeed as the final tableau plays out, my heart sank once I realised how it would be done – the songs really do stultify the pace. But more significantly, this last sequence desperately attempts to strike a poignant chord, yearning for an emotional resonance that the play, and particularly this production, simply hasn’t earned.

And this final note also has the impact of somewhat undermining what has gone before: a comedy can’t be left alone to just be a comedy, it feels like it must be given extra meaning somehow to validate its existence – but if it is really something darker than ‘just’ a comedy, the vast majority of this production fails to make that point. So ultimately Rourke’s overlong debut left me feeling ambivalent, though I was clearly in the minority in this whooping audience. With an ensemble as classy and talent-stuffed as this, there could hardly be a dull moment throughout The Recruiting Officer and there is much to enjoy here, but it is hard not to feel that She Stoops To Conquer does it all better for me.

Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes (with interval)

Programme cost: £3

Booking until 14th April

Radio Review: Dickens in London

2012-02-12T17:15:00.001-08:00

“It seems that I would be an uncommerical traveler”

The bi-centenary of Charles Dickens’ birth has been marked in several different ways across a variety of media and Dickens in London, this collection of five short radio plays by Michael Eaton was one which entertained me nicely. Adapted from some of Dickens’ journalistic essays, the plays deal with his changing impressions of London as he grew up, was stimulated by and then grew tired of the great city that inspired so much of his writing.

We start with A Not-Overly-Particularly-Taken-Care-Of Boy where the boy Charles gets lost on his very first visit with his uncle, then move to Boz, where a young man has secured himself employment as a Parliamentary Reporter for the Morning Chronicle but dreams of writing his own stories. Samuel Barnett is particularly good in these two first stories, his voice is particularly well suited to radio, so full of character and crackled emotion.

The Sparkler of Albion is the third story which sees Alex Jennings assuming the role of the writer who is now at the height of his popularity and success. He spends the evening with Elliot Levey’s Inspector Field to soak up the underbelly of London’s life but by the time ten years have passed, the allure has pretty much disappeared along with his ability to sleep. The Uncommercial Traveller sees him still walking the streets at night, his marriage crumbling away, and his love for London slipping away. The series ends with The Inimitable, where Dickens is near the end of his life and aware that he is coming close to the last of his public readings. Played by Antony Sher in this final play, with Barnett returning as a presence to help Dickens work his way through, it makes a fitting and surprisingly touching end to the set.

Jeremy Mortimer’s productions all cleverly incorporate sounds of the hustle and bustle of metropolitan life but also use sound and effects to add texture and interest to many of the scenes, especially in creating a palpable sense of atmosphere. Neil Brand’s music also adds another layer here to create a fascinating soundscape which really lifts the whole thing. I still find it a little odd that people digest these bitesize bits of radio in 15 minute chunks, I’ve always listened to the Women’s Hour omnibus, or created my own by listening to them back to back as I prefer the sustained impact of it all in one go, but then I’m still a newbie to radio drama and only ever listen to it online so have the choice.

DVD Review: Nicholas Nickleby

2012-02-11T17:12:00.000-08:00

“You must bear up against sorrow my dear”

Douglas McGrath’s adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby manages the not-unimpressive feat of condensing Dickens’ weighty novel into a two hour film, and whilst much must have been jettisoned (I’ve never read the book so I couldn’t tell you what) it still hangs together as a cohesive story with much to recommend it. McGrath also directs and remains very much faithful to the spirit of Dickens with a straightforward aesthetic that takes a few artistic liberties but whose heart is very much in the right place.

After the death of Nickleby senior, Nickleby junior is thrust into the role of head of the family but with the dastardly deeds of their unscrupulous Uncle Ralph, Nicholas has to work extremely hard and keep his wits about him in order to protect his friends and family from the misfortune around them. Those misfortunes are many and varied but entertainingly portrayed here as there’s a good deal of humour and pathos mixed in with the grimness.

Charlie Hunnam is perhaps a little too blond and clean to convince as a Dickensian hero (and his voice here never lets me forget Nathan) but he plays the part of Nicholas very well and has a great connection with the actors around him who form his social group. Whether it is Romola Garai’s much-abused sister Kate, Stella Gonet’s under-used mother or Jamie Bell’s heartbreaking but perfect Smike whose quiet dedication is probably the most moving aspect to the film.

The luxury casting extends right the way throughout the production: the travelling troupe with whom Nicholas connects briefly is run by Nathan Lane and Barry Humphries with a lovely chemistry together, Alan Cumming and Daisy Haggard are amongst the players there; Kevin McKidd and Helen Coker are a kindly couple who help out, and William Ash and Sophie Thompson also pop up amongst many other familiar faces. But it is the baddies who make the most impact: Christopher Plummer’s Uncle Ralph is excellent malevolent but Juliet Stevenson and Jim Broadbent as the vicious Squeers who run the schoolhouse are both terrifying and compelling.

It is probably heresy to say this, but I have to say this feels like a great introduction to Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby and though I shall probably investigate whether there’s a TV version which appeals to me (though I don’t want one that is too long...!) and indeed add the book to a pile of things I will read one day, I’d say this is well worth a watch.

Nicholas Nickleby contd

2012-02-11T17:04:00.000-08:00

The cast of Nicholas Nickleby continued.

Review: Lucky Stiff, Landor

2012-02-09T23:20:00.000-08:00

“We're down on our knees braving rabies and fleas"

Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's Ragtime was one of the highlights of the musical year in London and along with their revival of Howard Goodall's The Hired Man, marked a year with remarkable highs for the Landor Theatre in Clapham. Their small-scale but big-impact productions have proved a welcome boost to the London fringe musical scene, marked by their success in the Offies awards last week, and the Landor are clearly looking to maintain that by reviving Ahrens and Flaherty's first show Lucky Stiff. A frivolous musical farce, based on Michael Butterworth's "The Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo", the plot revels in the nonsensical and ridiculous as we caper from a dowdy English shoeshop and an Atlantic City optometrist's office to the glitzy casinos of Monte Carlo with gay abandon.

Harry Witherspoon's existence selling footwear is thrown into chaos when an unexpected bequest from an unknown uncle falls into his lap, but with certain strings attached. In order to get his inheritance, Harry needs to take the embalmed body of his uncle on a trip to Monte Carlo and pass him off as alive, or else the money will go to the Universal Dog Home of Brooklyn. Further complicating matters is the uncle's lover Rita, six million dollars worth of diamonds that have gone missing, an over-friendly Italian, cross-dressing maids, a representative of the dogs home with her eyes on the cash and a suspicious-looking Arab, as everyone descends on the South Coast of France in a madcap rush with much confusion ensuing.

James Winter brings an appealing likeability to his everyman Harry, a clear-voiced beacon of relative normality who comes to revel in the freedom offered by his change in circumstance, and his burgeoning relationship with Abigail Jaye's dog-obsessed Annabel is well portrayed, her comically bookish earnestness slowly melting in Winter's handsome presence. But it is Lucy Williamson's brassy and brashy legally blind Rita, complete with outrageous New Yoik accent and double takes aplenty, who seizes the comic honours with huge amounts of fun.

But farce requires more than just good performances to really be successful, it needs a finely calibrated play supported by a production which is whip-sharp and here, Lucky Stiff doesn't quite hit the mark. Ahrens’ book flails a little with its multiple locations in the first half, straining the capabilities of the design; and whilst Flaherty's songs are pleasant enough they largely lack lyrical bite or distinct enough tunes, and more importantly they rather disrupt the flow of the show, making it hard for Rob McWhir's production to establish and maintain the comic energy it needs to pass as engaging entertainment.

Uncomplicated fun is fine, but good comedy especially farce is rarely at all simple - just look at the intricacy of Noises Off's second act - and it feels at times as if we are witnessing the growth of Ahrens and Flaherty's writing rather than the fully fledged fruit. McWhir does work extremely well with what he has though and with a strong ensemble often doubling up, sprightly musical direction from Terence Penk and a touch of enlivening choreography from James Houlbrooke (who also provides amusing onstage support, a potential boyfriend for Joan the Mute perhaps...?), creates much of interest.

Running time: 2 hours (with interval)

Booking until 25th February

Originally written for The Public Reviews

Review: Sex with a Stranger, Trafalgar Studios 2

2012-02-08T22:57:00.000-08:00

“What are you up to tonight?”

It is always nice when a play can change your mind about a theatre. The Trafalgar Studios 2 has never been one of my favourite venues, its awkward shape and uncomfortable seating have often proved a challenge for directors and so my experiences there have definitely been a mixed bag. But Sex with a Stranger, written by Stefan Golaszewski who also pens Him and Her (not that I watch it), has slotted in extremely well with a cracking cast to tell its story of everyday disillusionment with love, sex and life. Adam and Grace hook up in a club and wind their way back to hers for a one night stand via the kebab shop and we get to see their attempts at halting conversation and forming a fumbling connection which are awkwardly, hilariously portrayed. We then skip back in time a day or so to find that Adam has left a girlfriend Ruth at home, but their relationship is no bed of roses and the stranger of the title could sadly apply to either woman.

There’s no denying that this isn’t the most substantial of works, but interestingly enough where I would happily criticise say Ayckbourn for being insubstantial to my mind, the slightness here was much more tolerable because of the connection that I felt with the writing. So much of it feels relatable and recognisable and thus it rang entirely true with me, especially in its depiction of a failing relationship. It probably wasn’t an avocado that caused it, but I’ve had that passive-aggressive moment in the supermarket; that horrible pull between partner and friends who don’t necessarily get on; that nagging sense that neither of you are on the same page. Golaszewski captures all of this so well in its raw awkwardness and uncomfortableness, which is served excellently for once in the close intimacy of the Trafalgar Studios 2 in Phillip Breen’s production.

The flickers of emotion, the briefest hint of expression, the tautness of the silences, nothing is hidden as the actors expose their character, flaws and all, in front of us. Jaime Winstone’s Grace has the bolshiness of a girl about town but great sensitivity too; Russell Tovey’s Adam has a lugubrious charm which belies the dark depths that threaten to bubble over; and Naomi Sheldon’s Ruth is given the most to work with as the woman clinging onto her relationship blindly at all costs, not quite able to keep the panic from her eyes. But such intimacy also works against the staging, the short bursts of scenes punctuated by brief blackouts are effective as a concept but in reality, the shuffling around of the actors is just a bit too evident.

And I think it felt a little imbalanced in its portrayal of the three characters – where it should have been even-handed, Tovey’s Adam was featured a little more heavily and our sympathies directed a little too much towards him and not always deservedly so. He’s been working out considerably and so the scenes with him shirtless and hanging out in his boxers were definitely not difficult on the eye, but their number felt a little excessive (and tailored towards a specific audience...?); and there was the nagging sense that the female characters could have been a little more rounded, a little more fleshed out to remain genuinely persuasive from all angles.

Still it is intriguing stuff, very well suited to this theatre (which is not always the case) and excellently acted. And the connections it wrought within me meant that it was an indisputably unsettling piece of drama for me and that is something very rare indeed.

Running time: 80 minutes (without interval)

Programme cost: £2.50

Booking until 25th February

Review: The Changeling, Young Vic

2012-02-07T23:39:00.000-08:00

“Resolve me this question”

And the question is do designers ever actually sit in the seats that surround the sets that they create. I ask because Ultz’s design for The Changeling, currently playing in the Young Vic’s Maria studio, stretches the seating round all four sides as well as into a set of nooks and crannies and wheelchairs downstairs. This is fine on two sides with the usual red seating but with the others, a single row of seats has been placed behind a heavy thick rampart meaning that visibility of a third of the stage is compromised and only partly rectified by leaning forward. Combined with the dreaded unreserved seating and the sheer arrogance of the audience members who refused to budge up like everyone else did in order to maintain ‘their’ spot and forcing some extraordinary contortions in order to allow many people to pass them, I couldn’t help but feel this was a configuration that had its audience too far back in its mind than is truly acceptable.

This won’t be the case for everyone, a good two thirds of the seats look to be fine though I can’t guaranteed you won’t get Satan’s own audience members next to you, and indeed my companion for the evening wasn’t half as bothered about having to lean as I was. But this is my blog and so I get to bitch about whatever I like! Fortunately the play was good enough to (mostly) overcome my reservations about the space and provide a wittily anarchic, jelly-filled take on Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s revenge tragedy classic, the second take on it in recent months on the South Bank after a less than successful version at the Southwark Playhouse.

Joe Hill-Gibbins’ modern dress production is playful and insane in its portrayal of Beatrice-Joanna’s nefarious machinations in order to ensure she gets to marry the man she loves. Hiring her obsessed servant De Flores to kill the man her father wants her to marry, she thinks she’ll be free to pursue her true love Alsemero, but the fanatical nature of his love demands visceral reward which leads down the path of darkness and tragedy. Chilling stuff on the page but the staging in this warehouse-like space edges it closer to dark comedy with people being drowned in the punch bowl, murdered by fire extinguishers and using handfuls of jelly and trifle as weapons, sex aids and gore.

And with the use of furniture to make entrances from, the tone could almost be farcical but the darkness of the material is never far away. Many of the ensemble double up to clever effect but Daniel Cerqueira makes a chilling De Flores with a sweaty sleaziness as he paws his mistress, Duncan Wisbey’s asylum keeper is suitably creepy and wild-haired Alex Beckett radiates an unnerving intensity. And at the centre of it all is Jessica Raine’s Beatrice-Joanna, caught up in her lustful desires and pulled further into a web of sexual intrigue than she ever imagined. Raine rises to the challenge excellently, I’ve not yet caught her in Call the Midwife, but have followed her stage work avidly and truly believe she is destined for great things.

Structurally, the balance between the main strand of sex and revenge and the comic subplot set in an asylum does not feel quite right. The Southwark Playhouse junked it completely, but here it has just been trimmed but perhaps a little too much as the scenes feel a little awkward and at odds with the rest. But by and large, it doesn’t detract from the dark entertainment herein once one has become accustomed to the arresting aesthetic. On a nerdish note, I loved the mini Posh cast reunion: Henry Lloyd Hughes looking particularly fetching and Charlotte Lucas in excellent jelly-smearing form; and the mini London Road reunion with Howard Ward and Duncan Wisbey. And overall, it is a riotous piece of fun, complete with bonkers choreography from Maxine Doyle: just make sure you get there in good time to get a decent seat.

Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes (without interval)

Programme cost: no idea, the ushers had none left when I got there

Booking until 25th February, returns only but they have been popping up fairly regularly