Monkey Matters Theatre Reviews

Dirty Little Machine, The Vault

2018-03-18T17:51:00.000+00:00

The note for Dirty Little Machine explains the play thus: "When Jane was 13, she read an old dirty porn novel about an uncle seducing his niece. It turned her on immensely and became the template for her future fantasies. In Dirty Little Machine, Jane decides to find the most fucked up degenerate and date him. The idea being that if she dates a misogynist porn-loving douche bag, her sexual fantasies will either be fulfilled, or she will renounce all disempowering fantasies. Become a real feminist."

Fantasies are usually taboo. Even if it's a small one like sleeping with your brother's wife. The mistake writer, Miranda Huba, makes is differentiating Jane from the boyfriend she refers to as The Weasel. In Dirty Little Machine, Jane paces the moral high ground giving a running commentary on her boyfriend's douche-bag-ness while agreeing every joyless scenario he suggests. These include threesomes, sex on camera, and the sexual exploitation of others. Neither misogynist nor feminist, Jane embodies the trope that no matter how many times a woman says No, she really means Yes. Oh dear.

Ultimately, Dirty Little Machine is an everyday tale of sex addiction. Of the urgent need to keep moving, to keep pushing boundaries long after the pleasure has gone. As Jane, Kate Handford is charming and speaks beautifully. Ben Mann portrays The Weasel as a camp and overgrown teenager, barefoot in pink Hawaiian shirt and jeans. While he obsesses with the processes of sex, his girlfriend is confused by the politics of it.

In conclusion: A long hour was lifted by lively stage direction from Roxy Cook who creates some lovely and very funny visual moments on David Allen's clever portable set. The piece is one of a number of shorts that make up this year's Vault Festival. It's an interesting space with great exteriors as well as interiors and any excuse to visit is good.

Vault Festival, Leake Street, London SE1. Finishes tonight, March 18

Julius Caesar review, Bridge Theatre

2018-01-31T13:56:00.000+00:00

Hold on to your hats for a most exciting and innovative Julius Caesar. The stall seats in London's new Bridge Theatre have been removed, revealing a floor that can rise and fall in sections and gradations to create a moving, central, set, around which a promenade audience doubles as the Roman hordes while a hard-working, fast-moving, ensemble reenacts Caesar's bloody end.

From the opening - a rock band starts fifteen minutes before the performance, the sound bouncing off the walls - we are moving to the beat of Nicholas Hytner's production. Insurrection is in the air. Cast and floor managers wave placards and demand change. When Caesar's beloved friend, Brutus - Ben Whishaw looking like a young Trotsky - begins the arguments in favour of assassinating the emperor, we're all with him. Even more so when David Calder's slow-moving, old-gittish, Caesar hoves into view. Of course this needs to be done!

The concern and tension that the plotters normally convey is replaced in this constantly morphing version, with speed and urgency. We're engaging with the actions more than the emotions. Thus when the plotters kill Caesar, the horror of what they have done is dulled. Particularly so because the intimacy and betrayal required to approach a divine leader and drive blades through his mortal flesh is replaced here by Brutus and Co standing some distance away and firing guns. When, at Julius Caesar's funeral, Mark Antony (David Morrissey, currently representing Rome on our screens in Brittainia) gives his normally powerful peroration - Friends, Romans, countrymen - it is lost in the sound and fury. Perhaps it is more realistic for that?

In conclusion: The underlying point about modern dictators passed me by but the mixed casting is terrific. Michelle Fairley is stunning as Cassius. There are more coherent and moving interpretations of Julius Caesar, but few as inventive. There is as much pleasure from Bunny Christie's set and the young, promenade, audience responding to it, as the action itself.

The Bridge Theatre, Potters Fields, London SE1 2SG. Run ends 15 April

Picture by Manuel Harlan, Bridge Theatre gallery

Dry Powder review, Hampstead

2018-01-31T00:14:00.000+00:00

Where money's to be made, Jenny has no scruples even by the standards of private equity. The price is always worth the prize. Even if that means breaking your word, asset stripping a going concern, and sacking 600 people. We'll outsource the work to Bangladesh, she explains. That's still providing employment isn't it, it's just offshore! To business partner, Rick, Jenny's argument would make sense were it not for the fallout from his $1M engagement party in Bali. Featuring an elephant, the party was held on the same day the company closed down a US supermarket chain. The press are still on his back. There have been public protests. Now their investors are withdrawing funds - the Dry Powder the company needs to grow its capital.

At the heart of their arguments is a deal brought in by the third partner, Seth - a big luggage company at two-thirds value. Jenny hijacks the deal. She turns Seth's promise to maintain production in the US, on its head. She wants to reduce the workforce to six, and outsource everything. Jenny and Seth tear strips off each other. Meanwhile, Rick is approaching a dodgy Hong Kong businessman to help raise Dry Powder. In the battle between sort-of-good and fairly-evil, who will win?

Should they, shouldn't they... That's pretty much the plot in Sara Burgess's biting drama. There are superb performances led by the brilliant Hayley Attwell as Jenny, Aidan McArdle as Rick, and Tom Riley as Seth. Whether or not you enjoy Anna Ledwich's production of Dry Powder however, will depend on whether your heart can accommodate characters as wilfully amoral as Jenny or as woefully ambivalent as Seth. And then, of course, there's Jeff (Joseph Balderrama), the luggage company boss who's trying to have it all. Is Rick right to believe that Jeff too, will have his price?

In conclusion: The focus of Dry Powder is singular. It's an hour and 45 minutes of continuous pithy conversation. If investment isn't your thing, or you're binary on the ethics of the city fat cats, it may feel too much - another layer of an onion that's had you crying for years. I found it strangely compelling with well-rehearsed arguments wittily refreshed.

Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, London NW3 3EU. Run ends 3 March.

The Dirty Thirty review, Rosemary Branch

2017-12-27T17:19:00.000+00:00

What is a play? I only ask because The Dirty Thirty's conceit is that its exuberant cast will perform thirty plays in sixty minutes. On the night I was watching, they pulled it off, and a lot of fun was to be had in the race against the clock. What's clear, however, is that they don't need to pull it off, and that's part of the fun, as is what fact that we're really watching is not a series of plays but a revue with an inventive mix of sketches from drama to slapstick. Perfect for Christmas.

The Dirty Thirty is the work of Degenerate Fox, an ensemble that has taken root at The Rosemary Branch and which regularly updates and changes the repertoire so what is seen once is not necessarily seen again. For each show, between four and seven performers (they are seeking more and an appeal for new actors is made at the end of the show) pin the numbers 1-30 on a washing line across the stage. The audience has a list of titles to which the numbers correspond. They shout out the order in which they'd like the pieces performed. As the stage randomly gets spattered with gunge, liquid, and detritus, the space distorts and subsequent performances are impacted. It's great fun...

The changing nature of The Dirty Thirty means no two performances have the same titles and each evening is complete in itself. There were a couple of sketches that were so wonderful, one involving a reggae beat and the other the sexualisation of hot yoga, that I hope are never dropped because they were classics. All the skits on the night we went - which ranged from period drama to singing - were consistently entertaining even when they weren't hitting all the markers.

In conclusion: It's lovely to see a young company creating a sustainable concept. The Dirty Thirty airs twice a month with new content. It could do with a tighter intro and it should lose the throw-out for new performers, which is too am-dram for what, at a mere £10 a ticket, is a promising, well-polished, night out.

The Rosemary Branch, Shepperton Road, London N1. Performances twice monthly.

Everybody's Talking About Jamie review, Apollo Theatre

2017-11-26T14:11:00.000+00:00

Jamie New is 16. He lives on a Sheffield council estate, and he's happy being a boy. He just likes dressing in girls' clothes. He dreams of stepping out in high heels and sparkles, of being both himself and her. How likely is that to happen in a tough, working class, northern neighbourhood where the most that young boys aspire to is driving vans? You already know the answer. It wouldn't warrant a musical without a happy ending, would it...

Everybody's Talking About Jamie was inspired by a 2011 TV documentary on the real Jamie New but the poster for the show is strangely archaic. I went as a friend's plus-one expecting high camp - more emphasis on style than substance. Two hours later I emerged with mascara streaks and a big smile across my face. Fuelled by superb songs and a mixed young cast, Everyone's Talking About Jamie is an affirmation of life in all its rich diversity from hijabs to sequins.

For me, it's not Jamie's story that underpins Everybody's Talking About Jamie but that of his mother, Margaret. A single parent - Jamie's father has left, disgusted by his son's cross-dressing - she struggles with little money and no support to encourage and protect this child who doesn't fit the norm. Her second half numbers, He's My Boy and If I Met Myself Again reduced everyone in my row to tears. Life is gritty and shitty. And, inevitably, it's great. Hats off to John McRae and Josie Walker who play Jamie and Margaret with warmth and soul. Also Mina Anwar and Lucie Shorthouse who do terrific turns as their respective best friends, Ray and Pritti.

Conclusion: The only giveaway that Everybody's Talking About Jamie is the first musical by writers Dan Gillespie Sells and Tom Macrae, is the pacing. The first half of Jonathan Butterell's production sags a little and both halves would benefit from more theatrical endings, but the high energy cast plug the gaps. This is a family show that hooks from the start.

Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London SW1. Run ends 21 April 2018
Photograph by Alastair Muir from The Stage

Picasso review, Playground Theatre

2017-11-07T21:48:00.000+00:00

How inspired for a new London theatre to open with a play about Picasso, a man whose creative and sexual power was so great he was still seducing women in his eighties. Talk about current. I'm sure it wasn't just me who cringed each time the painter kissed one of his muses on the small stage of the Playground Theatre. Of course, Picasso lived in a different age, and six months ago nobody would have raised an eyebrow at this production. It says a lot about the speed with which sexual politics are evolving, that there was a whole new layer of meaning to be traversed this evening.

Picasso was a genius of course. A rock star. Does that make it all right? Is genius a good enough reason for seducing a girl who, at 17, is thirty years your junior? The girl in question. Maria-Therese Walter, remained loyal to the artist all her life. So it worked. Meanwhile, the artist's wife, Olga, would only learn of the affair when Maria-Therese turned up at her door with Picasso's baby. So much passion and drama! Yet Picasso fails to identify what made the artist alluring beyond his genius.

The hearts of the characters are missing in Terry d'Alfonso's script. There is a lot of declaiming and unhappiness, but little insight or tension and a total lack of joy. What we have is the artist, after his death, being alternately berated and beguiled by three of his muses, all of them young women. In contrast, Olga is portrayed as a wrinkly harridan in pieces of film that run behind Klara Zieglerova's simple and elegantly designed set - a big sun made of sand in which Picasso metaphorically and literally stands full centre.

In conclusion: Picasso is a challenging choice for an opening play. One looks forward to new surprises from the Playground Theatre. For me, Picasso doesn't hit the markers, but there is much food for thought. The food at the bar looked pretty good too. the actors are Michael Tate, Adele Oni, Claire Bowman and Alejandra Costa. Director Michael Hunt.

The Playground Theatre, 8 Latimer Industrial Estate, Latimer Road, W10 6RQ. Run ends November 25

Photograph: Scott Rylander

Witness For the Prosecution review, London County Hall

2017-11-01T01:04:00.002+00:00

The old council chamber at London County Hall is the perfect setting for a courtroom drama. Seated in the round on leather benches, the audience is placed at the heart of the action as the Crown prosecutes Leonard Vole for murder. Vole is a charmer - a bit of an aimless scrote, but pretty, well-intentioned, and clearly in need of mothering. Would he really murder the older woman who planned to leave him her fortune? And why is the main Witness for the Prosecution his beloved wife?

Having watched Death On the Nile and assorted Christmas specials, every episode of Poirot, and almost all iterations of Miss Marple, I was expecting this Agatha Christie script to be heavy on characterisation and a bit convoluted and creaky on plot. Witness for the Prosecution was a surprise on all fronts. As Vole's story unfolds, in the offices of Sir Wilfred Robarts QC and in the court itself, it is complete in every particular. There are twists, of course, but they all make sense. No spoilers here, but it's a play that requires no post-show interrogation, clarification, or exclamation.

Lucy Bailey's elegant production heightens authenticity by following courtroom protocols. This includes the swearing in of a jury comprised of audience members. William Dudley's simple design is beautifully lit. The sound - from murmurings in the public gallery to the music during scene changes - is highly evocative. I had fun sitting on the jury - premium price seats -with Nikki Bedi from BBC2's Front Row. Her report is on November 4, at 7.30. Also alongside was a very excited Agatha Christie fan with a Marple iPhone cover. He was so overcome by proceedings, he collapsed in the aisle after the interval.

In conclusion: Jack McMullen is brilliant as Vole, morphing by degrees from chipper youth to embattled defendant. A raft of excellent performances include David Yelland as Robarts, Catherine Steadman as Romaine Vole, Patrick Godfrey as Mr Justice Wainwright, Jules Melvin as Janet Mackenzie, Roger Ringrose as Mr Mayhew, and Philip Franks as Mr Myers QC.

Witness For the Prosecution, London County Hall, Belvedere Road, London SE1 7BP. Run ends 11 March 2018

The Firm review, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs

2017-10-30T23:24:00.000+00:00

Roy Williams gave us Sing Yer Heart Out For the Lads, a play about race and football, and Sucker Punch, about race and boxing. In The Firm, race underpins a lot of what's happening, but it's about what unites the group rather than what rents them asunder. The Firm is an old South London crime gang headed by Gus, the only member never caught, and who now makes his money legitimately. He is the Bank of Mum and Dad to the group, bailing them out as needed.

We meet The Firm in Gus's pub as they're preparing to celebrate the release from jail of the legendary Shaun. Leslie is putting up the welcome banner. Recently released from prison himself, Leslie has embarked on a forbidden romance with his probation officer. It's made him rethink his priorities and his options. When Trent - who was sent to collect Shaun - returns alone, there is confusion. What has happened to the guest of honour? To add to the sense of foreboding, the final member of The Firm arrives with a young stranger in tow. Why are Leslie and Trent immediately discomfited?

What follows is a lively, funny, tense series of interactions during which the members of The Firm are challenged to prove their mettle. Are they still fearless villains happy to endanger themselves and others for small gains, or is it time to retire? The debate ranges across time and events, drawing new truths that demand fresh evaluations of who they are and who they were, individually and collectively. And where is Shaun?

In conclusion: It's wordy and too long, but The Firm is a good watch. Jay Simpson is brilliant as Leslie and Delroy Atkins is a comic Trent in Dennis Lawson's production. Convincing performances too from Clarence Smith, Simon Coombs, and Clinton Blake on Alex Marker's nifty pub set.

Hampstead Theatre, Eton Road, London NW3. Run ends December 2.

Young Marx review, Bridge Theatre

2017-10-24T01:26:00.000+01:00

Exiled in London we find the the Young Marx penniless but irrepressible, escaping his debtors over the rooftops of Soho. It is 1850. At home his wife is constantly packing her bags and threatening to leave. Their son is sick in the back room. Young Marx is in crisis. Expelled from Germany as a terrorist, he has found refuge but lost his mojo. He can drink and fight, but he just can't write. And he can't find peace either because there's no money, he's run out of things to pawn, and his fawning acolytes keep turning up unwelcome and unannounced. Only his bestie, Engels, provides relief.

In Young Marx, Marx and Engels are the Morecambe and Wise of political economy. At one point they steal the church gate and discuss who can piss highest while defacing its walls. It's a whole new way of presenting the author of The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital and Rory Kinnear is on cracking form as the Young Marx. Some of the scenarios are so outlandish - the baby with two dads, the duel, Darwin in the British Library - I assumed they were pure invention. But... a quick look online shows almost all happened though some at different times. You live and learn

Young Marx is the first production by Nicholas Hytner in his new theatre, the Bridge. It's an auspicious start. The team is one he used at the National Theatre - the brilliant playwright Richard Bean (One Man Two Guv'nors/England People Very Nice/Great Britain) in collaboration here with Clive Coleman, design by Mark Thompson, music Grant Olding, sound Paul Arditti, and Mark Henderson's lighting. The venue is spacious yet intimate with reasonably priced seating and good views all the way up. There are freshly baked nibbles in the interval. Allow extra time if driving as the main road is closed and it's mayhem - a lesson learned by the coach party which arrived 30 minutes late...

In conclusion: Fans of slapstick one-liners and blokey silliness will love Young Marx and the witty allusions to his work, his thinking, his influence, and modern socialism. It is probably no coincidence that it debuts in the month which marks the centenary of the October Revolution. Kinnear and Oliver Chris as Engels are glorious. Great support too from a team including Nancy Carroll, Laura Elphinstone, Eben Figueiredo, and Miltos Yerelemou. Previewing to Thursday.

Bridge Theatre, 3 Potters Fields Park, London SE1 2SG. Run ends 31 December
Live cinema streaming December 7

Anything That Flies review, Jermyn Street Theatre

2017-10-20T22:41:00.000+01:00

Anything That Flies starts unexpectedly. A 'good' German whose father opposed the Nazis is sent to look after an elderly Jew, the only member of his family to survive the holocaust. Otto has lived in North West London since the war. When Lotte arrives at his door - sent by his daughter in Israel - he is deeply unhappy. What follows is a dance between two displaced people separated by religion, age, gender, and different perspectives on the same terrible period in German history.

Across 90 minutes we learn Lotte's father was murdered for his views. She mourns an idealised pre-Nazi Germany where people worked together. As her story emerges in touching soundbites, it paves the gulf between her and the old man. This is a useful dramatic device but it is a romanticised and uncomfortable moral stance. There can be no experiential equivalence. Lotte's father died for his politics, which were a personal choice. Otto's family were murdered for their race, which was not.

Anything That Flies is peppered with allusions to better stories than the one we're watching. Why did Otto's British-born daughter move to Israel? What happened to his father's patented textile printing process? Will he refuse the risible reparations offered by the German government for stolen property (I have a friend whose family received £3000 for a multi-million-pound house on Berlin's Park Lane)? There are also moments of crassness. The story that give us the title, Anything That Flies, is numbing; deeply distressing. Within minutes, however, Otto is exhorting Lotte: Then fly, fly.

In conclusion: Judith Burnley's play, set after the fall of the Berlin Wall, bristles with promise but has no clear direction of travel. There's a bit of everything from sexual groping to incontinence and chicken soup. Characterisation is thin. Nonetheless the luminous Issy Van Randwyck lights the stage as Lotte, managing Clive Merrison's unsympathetic Otto with grace.

Photograph: Robert Workman

Fishskin Trousers review, Park Theatre

2017-10-20T12:30:00.002+01:00

Time is like a balloon on which each of our lives is a drawing. As the balloon continues expanding infinitessimally the drawing recedes to a pinprick. Millions of other drawings are added: millions of lives interweaving across time and space until the balloon bursts and we become a black hole. This is the metaphor at the heart of Fishskin Trousers, a wondrous story set on the Suffolk coast and narrated by those who have drowned there over the centuries: women suspected of witchcraft, reckless young men driven by inner demons, a young woman today making a life or death decision...

The connecting strand between the individual stories of Mab, Ben, and Mog are not immediately apparent in Fishskin Trousers. We hear three very different personal narratives. Mab's is magical, couched in fantastical medieval language delivered in a slipping accent that alternately beguiles and irritates. Ben's is funny and prosaic and innocent and dark. It is Mog's modern fable, a situation in which the easy answer is not necessarily the right one, that offers hope.

Across 90 minutes the stories start to interweave and Robert Price's production draws us into a hidden world beneath the sea, a world of villages lost, bells ringing, and a strange scream picked up on certain radio frequencies. As the direction of travel reveals itself, the tension starts to mount. The last half hour of Fishskin Trousers is terrific, leading to a moment of recognition that is deeply moving and satisfying.

In conclusion: Beautifully set and lit Fishskin Trousers draws strong performances from Brett Brown, Eva Trainor, and Jessica Carroll, and evokes the bleak Suffolk coast and its hidden depths. A poetic but sluggish first half impedes engagement with Elizabeth Kuti's script, but just when you give up hope, it rights itself. As does Mog's life.

Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace, London N4 3JP. Run ends 11 November

Heisenberg: the Uncertainty Principle review, Wyndham's Theatre

2017-10-19T12:46:00.000+01:00

Alex is a butcher in his seventies. One day, while sitting on a park bench in London, a middle-aged American woman kisses him on the neck and all of a sudden everything that Alex has known is upended. Georgie is a school secretary with a case of adult ADHD. She talks and moves like a hurricane constantly creating winds around Alex that blow him in unexpected and unwarranted directions. From the kiss to the twist, it's all about uncertainty.

Heisenberg: the Uncertainty Principle takes an idea from physics - that simply by someone observing an event, the event is changed (my understanding) - and plays with it through an improbable love story in which Georgie exerts a mesmeric hold over Alex to create what she needs in life. This includes a level of certainty, which she accrues through curious and uncomfortable meeting and mating scenarios. If the what-if was reversed and it was Alex cynically reeling in Georgie, would our responses be as benign?

Interestingly, playwright Simon Stephens, suggests that even while Georgie exerts power over events, it is Alex who has the ultimate power - the money Georgie needs to return to New Jersey and look for her son. Perhaps it is always the way that an old man's pull is his money and a younger woman's pull is her sexuality, but it's disappointing that there isn't something deeper and more challenging underpinning Heisenberg: the Uncertainty Principle. Running ninety minutes, the premise is slight and unconvincing.

In conclusion: Not enough tricks are made and too many tricks are missed for this play to be satisfying. That said, the majority of last night's audience clearly loved Heisenberg: the Uncertainty Principle. Anne-Marie Duff is an irritating but well-played Georgie and Kenneth Cranham is charming as Alex in this production by Marianne Elliot.

Wyndham's Theatre, Charing Cross Road, London WC2. Run ends 6 Jan 2018

Albion review, Almeida

2017-10-12T14:07:00.000+01:00

Audrey Waters has bought an old estate with the intention of restoring its historic gardens and recreating an imagined golden era. Within minutes of taking ownership however, her family is joined by strangers on the lawn. Neighbours, gardeners, a jobbing student, and Anna, the troubled girlfriend of Audrey's son James who died in the Iraq war, coalesce to make claims on her space. Can Audrey really clear the garden of people, of time, of change, of meaning... and expect it to thrive?

What follows in Mike Bartlett's new play Albion, is an extraordinary four acts. Audrey's need to take control and make a fresh start is constantly interrogated and found wanting. Her daughter resents the nannying and her husband has abrogated all responsibility. Her staff present with diverse and complex demands that disrupt schedules and budgets. Friends whose loyalty she took for granted, turn on her. The ghosts of the dead linger on long after their ashes are scattered. What on earth made her think she could do it?

On the way out of Albion there was a lively roadside discussion. Was the driving metaphor modern England or the battlefield that is Brexit? I think the latter. This beautifully directed parable draws on the sentimental longing for halcyon days to remind us - with humour, pathos, romance, and challenge - that nothing can ever be that simple. It draws beautiful performances led by Victoria Hamilton's arrow-straight Audrey. The choreographed planting scenes on Miriam Buether's simple set lift the heart, and there is an unforgettable sequence in which Vinetta Robinson as Anna, turns to the earth for comfort.

In conclusion: Albion is Bartlett's first production with director Rupert Goold, since King Charles III. It is another timely hit. Last night was a preview. On the premise that it will get even better over the coming weeks, I came home and invested in three £10 restricted view tickets to take the kids later in the run. It's that good.

Almeida Theatre, Almedia Street, London N1. Run Ends November 24

Saint George and The Dragon review, Olivier

2017-10-08T00:56:00.000+01:00

Rory Mullarkey's new play, Saint George and The Dragon, reflects the anxieties of the day. If the Patron Saint of England were to return now, what would he make of our society? Was the dragon that threatened human happiness really slain or has it been lying dormant, waiting to rise in a new form? Fans of Game of Thrones will find this rebirth scenario icily familiar. It's less convincing on stage, particularly without a) CGI, or b) sufficient back story to make the impossible seem likely.

Saint George and The Dragon is billed as a modern fable and presented as a cross between Don Quixote and Life of Brian. The dialogue is basic. My companion said it was like his school panto. There is a lot of setting up of people and situations, but little actuality. We only ever see George on the eve of destruction. He listens to peoples' grouches and vows to avenge them. The main tropes of the narrative - fire breathing beasts and restoring happiness to the masses - all happen out of sight. The only dramatic actuality is two dragon heads that bounce onto the stage like bargain bucket buys from nearby Chinatown.

A lot of the heavy lifting in Saint George and The Dragon is done metaphorically and literally by Rae Smith's lovely hillside set. It morphs across time from medieval huts to noughties skyscrapers. The downside is that it forces a lot of the action to the front of the stage which makes the production feel as pinched as the storyline. John Heffernan's village-idiot-portrayal of George is charming and leads to much merriment. There is a solid supporting cast. This cannot disguise, however, the play's failure to find a credible answer to what Saint George would make of modern England or, indeed, to exploit the fact that the real Saint was either Roman or Greek and never visited anyway.

In conclusion: There are still three performances of Saint George and the Dragon before First Night, and issues of pace and tension and odd glitches with the set will all be sorted by then. What can't be changed by the director, Lyndsey Turner, is the what-if or the dialogue, both of which would benefit from another year of planning and polishing.

Olivier Theatre, South Bank, London SE1. Run ends December 2

No One Will Tell Me How to Start a Revolution review, Hampstead Downstairs

2017-09-29T10:54:00.000+01:00

Why, in politically correct times, can a word like chav - redolent with snobbery, sounding like a sneer and delivered like a slap - still be heard in everyday conversations? The answer underpins Luke Barnes' cracking new play No One Will Tell Me How to Start a Revolution which provides a snapshot of the lives of three working class sisters transplanted to a middle class school by an aspirational dad. Suzie, Edwina, and Lucy are smart but a little wild and a lot untutored. Their dad knew the first step, but they need the system to provide the roadmap out of poverty...

No One Will Tell Me How to Start a Revolution is gloriously uplifting and horribly chastening: a celebration of youth and an indictment of the schools and communities that collude to punish the behaviours that are markers of deprivation. Few people at the bottom have time to read books on fast-tracking children's learning, or instilling discipline, or embedding social skills and manners. On their arrival at school, the girls' peers label them chavs and their elders penalise them for what they've never been taught and therefore cannot deliver. Within weeks the odds are loaded against them.

This makes No One Will Tell Me How to Start a Revolution sound bleak, but Anna Ledwich's production is rude with life and joy and the hopes and dreams of youth. Even when grim reality hits and Edwina is forced to compromise herself to pay the rent, they remain bewildered but hopeful. It is the audience that recognises the pattern. Without the information that shows you how to challenge a system, you never can.

In Conclusion: Crackling with energy, No One Will Tell Me How to Start a Revolution draws superb performance from Charlotte Beaumont, Helen Monks, and Sophie Melville. My companion for the evening has very different politics to me, and was equally moved to chew over the nuts and bolts of social injustice. At £12 a ticket, this is a great 90 minutes of theatre.

Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, Eton Avenue, London NW3. Run ends 21 October

The Revlon Girl review, Park Theatre 90

2017-09-20T21:32:00.000+01:00

The Revlon Girl is set in the village of Aberfan, eight months after a giant slurry tip engulfed the local school killing 116 children and 28 adults. A group of bereaved mothers have been invited to a make-up demonstration in the village hall. Some burn bright with fury. Others are trying to find meaning in the deaths through God and the afterlife. Can The Revlon Girl cleanse, polish, and use her bag of magic tricks to give them a glimpse of a better tomorrow?

Neil Anthony Docking's play is a beautifully judged piece. Heart-searing moments are finely balanced with humour, hope, and invective. Sian, who's organised the event, wants to find a way to reconnect with the husband who can no longer look at her. Jean is unable to feel anything for the daughter who survived or the unplanned child who's on the way. Marilyn is visiting mediums and seeing portents of doom in the drawings of her dead child. Rona is galvanised by grief. Alive with rage she plans to hit the Coal Board in the only place where they hurt - the pocket.

The Revlon Girl is about survival and how we have to march on. How should the life force express itself: through political lobbying, through new life, through love, through anger, through despair, or through denial? Inevitably, there is much to laugh at in The Revlon Girl and the richly drawn characters make every minute count. The only blip is that Docking doesn't quite know what to do with The Revlon Girl herself. Although based on real events, the role is a device for drawing out the stories of the bereaved, and when she herself tells a tale, it doesn't ring true or sit right.

In conclusion: Cracking performances from Antonia Kinlay, Charlotte Gray, Zoe Harrison, Michelle McTernan and Bethan Thomas touch the heart, and the dialogue crackles with tension. The Revlon Girl is life-affirming, even as it examines the aftermath of a most terrible and unforgivable tragedy. Based on a real story and timely after Grenfell, it is deeply moving.

The Revlon Girl, Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace, London N4 5JP Run ends October 14

Prism review, Hampstead Theatre

2017-09-09T13:42:00.001+01:00

The cinematographer and photographer Jack Cardiff was the man who made women look beautiful. The subtlety of his lighting and camerawork underpins the success of classics like The Red Shoes, The African Queen, Death on the Nile, The Prince and the Showgirl, and even Stephen King's Cat's Eye. He photographed Monroe, Bacall, the two Hepburns, and Sophia Loren. Inevitably, we discover in Prism, Cardiff slept with a number of leading ladies and fell in love with one...

Prism is writer and director Terry Johnson's homage to Jack Cardiff. We meet Jack in old age. His short term memory is going. His long term memory however, is a rich archive of sharp technical detail and insider gossip. Jack's family tries to mitigate his decline by getting him to chronicle his life. His son has turned the garage into a studio full of prompts: cameras, lights, a gallery of his famous portraits. A carer is employed to take notes for an autobiography. Jack's wife has given him a Prism of the type he used to diffuse light and create classic cinematic moments. The scene is set. Without the Director of Photography's eye, however, the scene cannot be shot. Jack's failing eyes stay determinedly on a past that brings him greater pleasure than the confusing present.

Robert Lindsay as Jack is a revelation - joyful, humbling, fumbling, life-enhancing, living every day in full technicolour. Is this by accident or design? In the second half of Prism we enter that diffuse world where today and yesterday fade into and out of each other. Tim Shortall's simple set transforms into the African jungle. Jack's wife and son morph into Hepburn and Bogart. Monroe pops in. We are infected with a nostalgia for the past. It's witty and sad, with excellent support from Claire Skinner, Barnaby Kay, and Rebecca Night.

Conclusion: Jack's Prism has gifted him a full spectrum of possibility. Even as he confronts the dying of his light, he can still see it shining. Film buffs will get pleasure from the familiar lines and deeper layers of meaning in Prism. For me it was a gentle and interesting consideration of, and riposte to, more standard responses to dementia.

Prism at Hampstead Theatre, Eton Road, London NW3 3EU. Run ends 14 October

Behind Closed Doors review, Drayton Arms

2017-08-25T01:38:00.001+01:00

I had the old Charlie Rich song in my head as we headed to the Drayton Arms this evening - nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors... Behind this particular door we find Emma and Connor preparing for a dinner party. Connor's running through the guests - a ghastly crew of Emma's work colleagues headed by know-all Nadia. Connor already hates the thought of Nadia and her geeky husband, Mark. What will he make of the real thing? Then, out-of-the-blue, Emma's newly single sister Kirsty texts. She's coming over. Now. There could be trouble ahead.

The first half of Behind Closed Doors zings along with humour and energy. Writer Kevin Lee wittily showcases the nuanced behaviours that give relationships away. Joining tight-lipped Nadia and nerdy Mark in Emma's front room, is giggly Grace from Facilities Management. On her arm is her black boyfriend Ben, presented as a stereotype - a member of the gormless DJ tribe living in social housing. He discusses anal sex over beef bourguignon and makes jokes about prison and pooh. Enter Kirsty. Kitted out like Janis Joplin, and planning a thirty-something gap year, she's in the mood for mischief. Only Grace and Ben - a delightful comic duo from start to finish - escape her wiles. As the others start to chafe we wonder where, or on whom, the axe is going to fall.

A mood change in the second half of Behind Closed Doors sees a series of rambling conversations and unnecessary diversions that fail to shed light on matters. A ferocious argument defending Trump creates fireworks, but what is its relevance to what Emma and Connor are working through Behind Closed Doors? As the lights go down the same can be asked of much of the evening's action.

In conclusion: Kevin Lee directs as well as writes, and there are some very funny moments. What's needed is some unpicking and restitching to build in tension and focus so there's a more clear direction of travel. An excellent cast - Ciaran Duce, Frances Knox, Adam Strawford, Pearce Sampson, Kristina Westall, Suzy Whitefield and Fiona McGee - give it their all.

Behind Closed Doors at the Drayton Arms Theatre, SW5 0LJ, runs to 26 August

Ink review, Almeida

2017-06-23T01:09:00.000+01:00

As a cub reporter in the 1980s I was asked by a Sun snapper to do a Page 3 shoot. I demurred, but not because I objected to the idea. In those heady days of sexual liberation many young women saw Page 3's fresh-faced models as a beacon of female sexuality, proof that we could bare it, flaunt it, and walk away laughing with our reputations intact. Anyway, it was hard to take seriously in the context of a rag that was outrageous, outraged, and laugh-out-loud funny. Sometimes, of course, The Sun had too little regard for decorum or decency. Then it was the paper itself that stole headlines. Ink James Graham's high octane dramatisation of the paper's first year - and what a year it was - captures all those elements.

On it's first birthday, under the direction of Larry Lamb, The Sun overtook The Daily Mirror's 4M+ daily sales. The excitement and energy that drove that success is imprinted on every scene of Ink. Driven by Rupert Murdoch's money and maverick brilliance and Lamb's disruptive thinking, The Sun presaged Twitter, holding a mirror in which society saw itself reflected warts and all. It was also the paper that took on the unions and dragged Fleet Street into the electronic age... Inevitably the second half of Ink is darker. With the kidnap and murder of Muriel Mackay, the wife of Murdoch's Deputy, the Editor and proprietor go head-to-head. The relationship worsens when, to drive sales, Lamb introduces Page 3. The seeds of The Sun's pathology are being sown - cycles of riotous joy alongside righteous anger, regularly corrupted by independent Editors who bend the rules too far.

Directed with joy by Rupert Goold, even those who hate red-tops and their demographic will find much to enjoy in Ink. At a time when The Sun is best known for the number of laws it has broken, Ink is a salutary reminder of how it broke the fourth wall between the newspaper establishment and the reading public. Of how it thumbed its nose at tradition and chose to reflect 'the ordinary people' over their rulers. Stellar performances on Bunny Christie's evocative set include Richard Coyle as Larry Lamb, Bertie Carvel as Murdoch, David Schofield as Hugh Cudlipp and Geoffrey Freshwater as Sir Alick Mackay.

In conclusion: This blog has been quiet lately. Nothing has been good enough - or bad enough - to review. Woyzeck was numbingly dull, Killology numbingly grim. Common was cancelled the night I had tickets, and The Country Girls was charming but bitty. I have half a review of Annie, giving up because it hurt to diss Miranda Hart. So thank you Almeida, for Ink, which has reinforced an old journalist's love of red-tops, and restored her theatre mojo.

Ink at The Almeida Theatre, Almeida Street, London N1 Run ends August 5

Salomé review, Olivier Theatre

2017-05-10T14:27:00.001+01:00

Say the name, Salome, and immediately there's a vision of a young woman holding the head of John the Baptist. And that's as much as I knew as the lights went down on an extraordinary production in which the story of the young Salome is told by her older self. The style is appropriately archaic, lots of declaiming and prancing and some extraordinary live singing which is both thrilling and terrifying. Game of Thrones came to mind on a number of occasions, except this is all supposedly true. To reinforce the point, John the Baptist performs his role entirely in the language of the Bible: Aramaic.

Another reason we remember Salome is for the Dance of the Seven Veils - she is a seductress. In Yaël Farber's production she is an abused nymphette, constantly pawed and ultimately raped by her uncle, before being forced to bare herself for his friends. It's a deeply moving series of scenes somewhat brought short by the unveiling. As Salome, Isabella Nefar clearly did not wish to bear all. The final piece of clothing drops to reveal a kingsize merkin sitting on her pubis like a bear pelt. Surreal, yes, but totally appropriate to a piece of theatre where after a while you lose sight of what's going on.

And yet I enjoyed Salome. It was like an-out-of-body experience: camp yet evocative, harrowing yet banal. Adam Cork's music, the lights, and the brilliant use of the revolving stage, ooze atmosphere. Placed to the side of proceedings I could actually read the translations of John the Baptist's utterances. In the role, Ramzi Choukair looks like the bear from which the merkin pelt was seized. He is loud, powerful, determinedly foreign - a salutary reminder when people so often discredit the Middle East, that all the great Biblical figures including Christ, were early, swarthy, Jewish folk.

In conclusion: I loved Salome because it was mesmeric. I loved that the excellent leads were of Middle Eastern heritage. The music was great. But... friends in other parts of the theatre were less enamoured. They thought it dry, and unclear. What I found amusing, they found risible. They were all raised with this story and I wasn't. That might be the clue to whether or not you'll enjoy it.

Salome, Olivier Theatre, National Theatre, South Bank, London SE1 Run ends July 15

Picture taken from susanhilferty.com

Nuclear War, Royal Court Upstairs

2017-05-03T10:52:00.001+01:00

Nuclear War is a strange and wonderful rumination on the life force. The action takes place in the head of a middle-aged woman who has lost her partner. Time is moving on in a series of set-piece routines on which her imprint is imperceptible. Without a partner she is unvalidated. Walking dust. She considers a fleeting sexual encounter. To lose herself in the moment for one last time. Who with? Around her in the big city, people are intent on their own lives. She is invisible to them.

A cast of five drives this sensate and pulsing short, written by Simon Stephens and turned into an exciting 45 minutes of music and movement by Imogen Knight. At its heart is the Scottish actress Maureen Beattie, washed-up, washed-out, and awash through eddies of pain and despair, dreams and determination. Her prosaic and powerful voice, used both on tape and on the small stage of the Royal Court upstairs, drives the action alongside an exciting electronic score by Elizabeth Bernholz.

It is hard to say what Nuclear War is, beyond a journey through emotion. Like a painting or a piece of music, it gives you a context, but what you read into it is up to you. I suspect it helps if you are, or if you know, members of a growing demographic: older women anxiously contemplating years and even decades on their own. Immersed in Beattie's world, we see how terrifying it is to be isolated - that each of us can be reduced to a teardrop in the ocean of humanity.

In conclusion: We're witnessing more a nuclear winter than a Nuclear War. It may be a bit too airy-fairy if you like clear narratives. There is however a fabulous young cast - Gerrome Miller, Beatrice Scirocco, Andrew Sheridan, and Sharon Duncan-Brewster - who prowl and growl and prance around Beattie maintaining constant momentum and tension.

Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, London SW1. Run ends May 6.

Picture taken from The Times

Occupational Hazards review, Hampstead Theatre

2017-05-01T23:42:00.000+01:00

Set in Iraq, Occupational Hazards is the true story of Rory Stewart, a 30-year-old diplomat who in 2003 unexpectedly finds himself governing a province of nearly 1 million people. Yes, that's right, a young man with a book-based knowledge of marsh Arabs was put in charge of a province the size of Northern Ireland. Stewart's romanticised expectation that he will reconcile the warring factions in Maysan and introduce the rule of law, is soon upended. He speaks both the language of the region and the language of peace, but has no grasp of the deep tribal enmities that divide the people, or the growing threat from religious fundamentalism. He holds democracy aloft like a missionary holds a bible in a jungle clearing circled by tigers.

My twenty-something companion was incensed by this perspective. "Another tale of white saviours bringing peace to brown savages incapable of negotiation," she growled. "He gets a personality and back story, while Iraqi history is reduced to a shaming reminder to the savages that they are letting down their ancestors." The shaming referred to is a scene in Occupational Hazards where Stewart uses an old Babylonian tablet on which the first recorded language is still visible, to reason with local chiefs. Iraqis were the first people to have language and laws, he says. Returning to a state of order should surely be second nature... Did we ever really believe it was that simple?

It is also true that Stewart's character is fleshed out, albeit sketchily - he walked across Afghanistan for the hell of it, before returning to his family's Scottish estate to plant 400 trees. Conversely, the Iraqis are a serious of thumbnails: the politician, the fundamentalist, the policeman, the academic, the token woman. No sense of what makes them tick. The problem is not, one suspects, Stewart's story, so much as the way playwright Stephen Brown has centred the action around the inept idealist. You're acutely aware that big swathes of detail are missing. It feels more like an outline for a play than the final cut.

In conclusion: Stewart, currently our Minister for International Development, was clearly starred from an early age. Better developed, Occupational Hazards could illuminate some of the darker corners of the Iraq narrative. In it's current 90 minute form, it's trite. Henry Lloyd -Hughes is a likeable Stewart. The rest of the cast is short-changed on characterisation.

Occupational Hazards, Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, NW3. Run ends 3 June.

The Treatment, Almeida

2017-04-28T20:24:00.003+01:00

Fake news is rooted in the art of storytelling, because storytelling isn't about arranging truths so much as moulding and manipulating them till they're bigger, better, brighter. Till they promote a particular worldview. The underlying theme in Martin Crimp's revived satire The Treatment is that we all embellish and exploit the truth. Every storyteller whether in the room or on the screen - or on social media, will reframe turning points to show themselves, or their characters, in a better light. They project themselves as innocents or ingenues, heroes or saviours, victims or unwitting witnesses.

Jennifer and Andrew make films. When Anne turns up at their office with a treatment - a story outline - chronicling her violent marriage, they're hooked. Jennifer savours the detail, lingering over the image of Anne trussed to a chair, her mouth taped shut. The grey of the tape would look great on camera, she says. It would catch the light and reflect Anne's husband Simon, wearing a hood and abusing her. Anne protests. Simon never abused her. Jennifer is inventing facts. Meanwhile, a veteran playwright submits a treatment in which an elderly artist is forcibly turned into a sexual voyeur. Deciding to fuse the two stories together, Jennifer leaves it to Andrew to get Anne's consent...

The Treatment is crisp, blackly comic, and joyous. Directed with precision by Lyndsey Turner, the tension slowly ratchets up as Anne's story is spiralised by the professionals. The group scenes featuring a bevy of silent extras - there are 30 cast credits - are beautifully choreographed. The surreal ending will stay with you. What we've learned is that storytellers, whether in life or art, play with reality. When Anne, disillusioned by the exploitation and corruption of the film world, returns to Sam in a bid to find her truth, the line is crossed by them all. The blind have been leading the blind.

In conclusion: Giles Cadle's set and Neil Austin's lighting are as crisp in The Treatment as the action. The leads - Aisling Loftus as Anne, Matthew Needham as Sam, Indira Varma as Jennifer, Julian Ovenden as Andrew - are terrific. Great support is provided by Gary Beadle, Ian Gelder, Ellora Torchi, Hara Yannas, and Ben Onuwewke. Well worth a ticket.

The Treatment, Almeida Theatre, Almeida Street, London N1. Run ends June 10

Obsession review, Barbican

2017-04-23T00:30:00.003+01:00

Obsession filled me with obsessive longing within minutes of starting, and it wasn't a longing to rip off Jude Law's clothes. That said, he ripped them off for us. But kept his draws on, which was a shame, because proceedings badly needed a lift. The decision to give the cast personal microphones meant Law had a large piece of tape flapping on his back. It looked like his skin was coming off. Or maybe it was crawling? For a man who moves like a panther - his moves are truly great - how terrible to play opposite a female lead who cannot match your sensuality and sexuality. Law was like a character out of Tennessee Williams. His woman - the object of his Obsession - was from Honk!

To add to the sense of disconnect, Obsession is written in kindergarten English. There is no nuance, no depth, no sophistication. The lovers, who barely know each other, kill the jealous husband who stands between them. Events start sprialling out of control. As if this theatrical dog's breakfast needed any extra ingredients... The story is laughable. The characterisation barely makes the third dimension. The secondary characters have no meaning at all. Director, Ivo van Hove, who conceived the play, fills the gaps in the dramatic vacuum with sudden strangulations and tit-flashes. He plays music at top volume over dialogue and car crashes. And Jude Law running away on a treadmill (sic). There is a constant clash, rather than blend, of the theatrical with the cinematic.

Mr Van Hove is the director de jour, perhaps with reason, but it feels a bit Emperor's New Clothes. I have only seen one of his previous productions, the David Bowie jukebox drama Lazarus. Like Obsession, the emotion in Lazarus was mapped rather than expressed or explored. The result was robotic: Tech 4.0 comes to the London stage. My response was to give away my ticket to Van Hove's Hedda Gabler. I didn't want to risk falling out of love with its star, the wondrous Ruth Wilson. Tonight, in order not to fall out of love with Jude Law, I shall go to sleep remembering his superb 2009 Hamlet.

In conclusion: Unlike the clever punters who fled early, I waited obsessively to exit at the interval. There wasn't one. The piece runs without a break. We were literally a captive audience. There is still one performance of Obsession before the First Night. It's too late now to work on characterisation and dramaturgy, but perhaps a few lines of context would help?

Obsession runs to May 20 at the Barbican Theatre, Barbican Centre, London EC2Y 8DS

Picture taken from The Stage

Consent review, Dorfman Theatre

2017-04-07T01:02:00.001+01:00

Consent is a provocative look at the treatment of sexual crimes perpetrated by men against women. Whether they're being raped by strangers or cheated on by partners, the victims have to both prove the wrong, and manage the fallout. Seeking justice or escape leaves them open to further brutalisation from the legal system. It could put you off relationships forever.

Nina Raine's exhilarating play is about much more than no means no. It's a study of the well-rehearsed grey areas around Consent - areas our courts struggle to demonstrate and evidence. Every stage of sex - from meeting and courtship to signposting and bed - is grey. How can sex crimes possibly be reduced to black and white? Insights are provided by Raine's cast of barristers and their partners. We meet them talking with forensic detachment about the bloodiest of sex-related cases. In a series of cut and thrust exchanges they notch up wins and losses against each other. This includes an ongoing rape case which one is prosecuting and another defending. These are not mediators but manipulators: interrogators, interlocutors, intellectuals.

On Christmas day, the lives of the rape victim and the friends intersect. It leads to a fracturing of the central marriage in Consent. Edward and Kerry have been the heart of the group. As they unravel, everyone gets involved and everyone has a view on where the law stands in relation to Edward's actions and Kerry's rights. What happens when the facts are clear but the circumstances aren't? Shades of grey start to cloud their own understanding and judgement. The lawyers struggle to steer a straight course. What happens next is a bit pat, but not unbelievable. As the lights went up the young woman next to me said, "I'm so glad I'm single." The one on the other side of her said, "I'm so glad I'm divorced." Outside I met two actor mates resettling their nerves with fags: "Whether top dollar or bottom, women come off worst," one sighed.

In conclusion: Roger Michell directs elegantly on Hildegard Bechtier's clever, deceptively simple set. The acting is taut and superb. Anna Maxwell Martin and Ben Chaplin shine as Kerry and Edward. Heather Craney as the rape victim is deeply moving. The friendship group is Pip Carter, Daisy Haggard, Priyanga Burford, and Adam James. A brilliant, challenging, play.

Dorfman Theatre, South Bank, London SE1. Run ends 17 May.

Photograph from The Guardian