Giant - Review

Royal Court Theatre, London

***

Written by Mark Rosenblatt

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

John Lithgow

Set in a bucolic summer’s afternoon in Buckinghamshire in 1983, amidst the drilling and banging of a country residence that’s being lovingly restored, Giant is a drama loosely based on facts, about the antisemitic views and writings of that hero of children’s literature, Roald Dahl.

Bearing a striking resemblance to how we recall Dahl from his appearances in the media, with perhaps a nod to JR Hartley too, John Lithgow makes his Royal Court debut as the author. His foils across the lunch table are real life publisher Tom Maschler (played by Elliot Levey) and the fictional Jessie Stone (Romola Garai), an agent from Dahl’s US publishing company. Dahl has recently published a book review, widely seen as antisemitic, and the two publishing professionals are there, over glasses of Chablis, to coax him into drafting an apology.

Mark Rosenblatt’s drama is tightly written. In what feels like a slightly overlong 2hrs 20mins, the pace never falters, with Rosenblatt’s dialogue proving well-structured and his characters, credible. Garai and Rachael Stirling, as Dahl’s Mitford-like fiancée Felicity Crosland are both outstanding. Levey plays a recognisably luke-warm diaspora Jew, not too bothered by Dahl’s pronouncements and more concerned with trying to smooth things over at all costs. Of the three supporting characters, his is perhaps the least compelling.

Lithgow’s work however is tremendous - and under the direction of Nicholas Hytner, turns in an Olivier-worthy performance.

But other than some smug references to Ian McEwan and the literary world of that time, ultimately what is the point of this play other than to provide a platform for Dahl’s rabid ravings? Giant drips with Dahl’s criticism of Israel (the 1982 Lebanon War was raging), with clear echoes of criticisms that have been levelled at the Jewish state in more recent times during the Gaza conflict. Unsurprisingly for the Royal Court there is little offered by way of challenge to Israel’s actions, although it ultimately has to prove some comfort that Dahl’s rants against Israel are coming from the same mind and mouth that throughout the play utter the vilest antisemitic slurs. There remains of course the sad but realistic possibility that much of that irony may have soared over the heads of many of the Royal Court’s audience.

That this is brilliantly crafted theatre is unquestionable. That it also provides a soapbox for countless tropes makes for an evening that is ultimately deeply unsatisfying.

Runs until 16th November

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

1984 - Review

Theatre Royal, Bath

****

Written by George Orwell

Adapted by Ryan Craig

Directed by Lindsay Posner

Keith Allen and Mark Quartley

In our world today with its visibly two-tiered criminal justice system, where citizens are imprisoned for the crime of having expressed their opinions while at the same time a notoriously shamed paedophile, convicted of viewing pornographic images of the most depraved child abuse can escape a custodial sentence, it feels like a re-visiting of George Orwell's 1984 is long overdue. 

Orwell's Oceania is a totalitarian state presided over by Big Brother. A society where the militia brutalise the citizens into surrendering their capacity to think. As the regime edits the languge of its day into the continually updated 'Newspeak', the modern-day resonances with the West are troubling. Orwell's classic has long been a harsh prediction on where our democracies are heading and in Lindsay Posner's production, staged against Justin Nardella's bleak but effective video projections, there are moments of deeply harrowing horror. 

Mark Quartley plays protagonist Winston Smith, a role that is physically demanding and consuming. On stage virtually throughout, it is his arc that we follow as his secrets are betrayed and he is violently subject to electric-shock torture, its objective to destroy any sense of right and wrong that we see him desperately try to cling on to.

Opposite Quartley is Eleanor Wyld playing his love interest Julia. The pair hold our suspense throughout and as we learn of their ultimate mutual betrayal of each other, the evening's endgame is a heartbreaker.

Astride the whole work and seated on stage throughout, in what should have been a stroke of perfect casting, is Keith Allen's O'Brien. Not at his best on press night, there is more that Allen can likely bring to the role. O'Brien is a man devoid of any shred of humanity and compassion and while that harshness was at times apparent in Allen's work, there were moments when his carapace appeared to be more of a soft underbelly.

This production can only improve on the road - an intelligent treatment of one of the 20th century's finest stories.

Runs until 28th September, then on tour to Malvern, Poole, Guildford, Cambridge, Brighton, Richmond and Liverpool

Photo credit: Simon Annand

Waiting For Godot - Review

Theatre Royal Haymarket, London

****

Written by Samuel Beckett

Directed by James Macdonald

Ben Whishaw, Lucian Msamati, Tom Edden, Jonathan Slinger

With a luxurious cast, Samuel Beckett’s opus drama returns to London’s West End.

Lucian Msamati and Ben Whishaw are Estragon and Vladimir, the hapless duo prescribed to await Godot’s arrival on Rae Smith’s set that is as bleak as the narrative. A barren setting, save for a tree, captures the pair’s desolation in a story that is hard to define. 

Beckett’s tragicomedy plays with aspects of loneliness, co-dependency, base humanity, cruelty and abuse - there is also a theme of faith and divinity that underpins the whole piece. Premiering some 71 years ago, in Vladimir and Estragon we can see some of the comedic duos that were to follow in the 1960s and 70s. Think of Albert and Harold Steptoe, Rigsby and his tenants in Rising Damp, Basil and Sybil Fawlty to name but three examples - all relationships doomed to an eternity of complex mediocrity from which no protagonist can ever escape. But unlike a 30minute sitcom episode, Waiting  For Godot is a challenging 2 1/2 hours (including interval) that at times makes huge demands on its audience to keep up with its dry genius.

Msamati and Whishaw are superb in their interpretations. They are brilliantly assisted by Jonathan Slinger as the cruel yet ultimately vulnerable Pozzo and Tom Edden as his unfortunately named slave, Lucky. Edden’s first-act monologue is a masterclass in spoken and the physical drama. On the evening of this review Luca Fone played the (Christ-like?) boy, perpetually sent to herald the next-day’s arrival of Godot.

A rare treat to find this work on a major London stage and for those with an appetite for Absurdist Theatre, the show is unmissable.

Runs until 14th December

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

The Truth About Harry Beck - Review

Cubic Theatre, London

****

Written and directed by Andy Burden

Simon Snashall

The truth about Harry Beck, a graphic designer working for London Transport, is that he gave London its iconic Tube Map. 

With a skill in drawing schematics of electrical circuits to aid the network’s signalling engineers, it was Beck’s creative genius that transformed the Underground’s map from its original form, based on the capital’s actual geography and thus a visual jumble of spaghetti, to the far simpler “diagram” as Beck himself referred to his creation, that is now recognised across the world.

With meticulous research Andy Burden charts Beck’s life, and marriage to Nora, tracking his achievements and setbacks, sensibly trimming his narrative into one-act of 70 minutes.

Playing in the compact Cubic Theatre that nestles underneath Covent Garden's London Transport Museum, Simon Snashall as Harry with Ashley Christmas as Nora are perfectly cast. Capturing a gentler time of 20th century England, the pair sensitively portray the couples’ love and aspirations. As we come to learn of their ultimate childlessness, Beck’s pride in his brilliant simplification of the Tube network becomes even more painfully poignant.

There’s meat in the dialogue to satisfy the city's geeks and historians. As Harry comments to Nora as his diagram evolves: “Does it matter that Queensway and Bayswater are really so near to each other?”, had knowledgable Londoners chuckling.

The staging is simple, with a neat touch early on as Beck grabs coloured ribbons from Nora’s sewing box, to graphically festoon their lounge. It is a moment of delightful theatre as his simple representation of the central London intersections of the Bakerloo, Central, District, Metropolitan, Northern and Piccadilly lines takes shape before our eyes.

This is charming, informative and educational drama that is beautifully performed.

Runs until 10th November

Photo credit: Mark Douet

Abigail's Party - Review

Stratford East, London

****

Written by Mike Leigh

Directed by Nadia Fall

Tamzin Outhwaite

Tardis-like, Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party takes us back in time nearly 50 years in his eviscerating glimpse into UK suburban life. Played out over a Demis Roussos soundtrack and accompanied by cubes of cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks, one starts to get a hint of the 1970s culture and attitudes that this play so brilliantly showcases.

Tamzin Outhwaite dominates the play's action (that never leaves her front room) as Beverly, dressed like a wannabe Greek goddess and trying desperately, futilely, to bring a whirl of glamour into her dull marriage to estate-agent Laurence (Kevin Bishop) by having invited the neighbours round for drinks, nibbles and endlessly proffered cigarettes.

In her inept attempts at sophistication, Beverly is a Hyacinth Bucket crossed with Sybil Fawlty, but unlike those two giants of the UK’s comedy landscape, she is a woman with a darker and more vulnerable side. She cannot restrain herself from outrageously provocative flirting with neighbour Tony (Omar Malik), a former professional footballer who in terms of his masculine sexuality, possesses everything that she perceives the inadequate Laurence to lack. And yet, in the play’s finale (no spoilers here) Beverly reveals herself to be both deeply loving of, and possibly emotionally dependant upon, her husband. Beverly is an inspired creation by Leigh, and in Outhwaite’s interpretation, truly one of the most exciting performances to be found in London today.

The supporting actors are similarly excellent in their contributions to this domesticated evening from hell. Ashna Rabheru plays Angela, Tony’s wife. A nurse by profession, yet dominated brutally and bullyingly at home by her husband, Rabheru captures Angela’s naïve yet knowing complexities with a fine understanding. Laurence in his own way is as ghastly as his wife and Bishop does well to capture his aspirational, faux cultural-wisdom alongside his thinly veiled racism.   There is just a hint of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, as he and Beverly spar in the ring of their unhappy union.

Completing this exquisitely observed quintet is Pandora Colin as divorcee neighbour Susan and mother of the (unseen) 15 year-old Abigail who has been left at home across the road, hosting her eponymous rowdy teenage house party. 

Stratford East’s Artistic Director Nadia Fall directs with perceptive wisdom, her work enhanced by Peter McKintosh’s wonderfully evocative set and costume designs.

Fabulous writing, wonderfully performed – and all at an affordable ticket price too. This production of Abigail’s Party is what a great night at the theatre is all about. 

Runs until 12th October

Photo credit: Mark Senior

Why Am I So Single? - Review

Garrick Theatre, London

***

Written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss

Directed by Lucy Moss

Co-directed and choreographed by Ellen Kane

Leesa Tulley and company

It’s quite something for writers to have a brace of shows running simultaneously in the West End, but with Six at the Vaudeville and now Why Am I So Single? round the corner at the Garrick, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss have achieved that double.

Six was famously created around the wives of Henry VIII, lending itself to a tightly written book based on a rich chapter of world-famous history. It enjoyed a stratospheric and deserved rise from humble beginnings on the fringe to the globally touring phenomenon of modern musical theatre that it is today. Why Am I So Single? however, drawn from the lives of Marlow and Moss themselves, makes for a narrative that’s lightweight and superficial in comparison. While the pair's close platonic friendship and respective life stories may be touching, they do not support a 2 1/2 hour show that itself could do with a trim of at least 30 minutes.

Where Stephen Sondheim once brilliantly explored the angsts of being single in Company, Marlow and Moss offer little more than an immaculately produced evening of self-indulgent introspection and navel-gazing. Written by anyone other than these now acclaimed wunderkinder the production may well have struggled to gain traction and backing - that is if it were even conceived at all - let alone this big fancy West End opening that frames its commercial rollout.  

Amidst countless references to classic musicals and frequently smug breakouts across the fourth wall, Nancy and Oliver (played by Leesa Tulley and Jo Foster) are Marlow and Moss’s leading characters, effectively their onstage "fictional" representations. The show is technically whip-smart and while its lyrics may be repetitive and its melodies forgettable, both Tulley and Foster sparkle with performing excellence and gorgeous voices. Noah Thomas as their mutual friend Artie is also at the top of his game.

Ellen Kane’s choreography and co-direction is another of the evening’s stunning treats with her company drilled to a glorious visual perfection.  Atop the stage, Chris Ma’s eight-piece band are equally slick.

The storyline may be thinly crafted but who knows? With its Marlow and Moss imprimatur, Why Am I So Single? may yet appeal to Gen Z. It’s certainly been rolled in enough glitter!

Booking until 13th February 2025

Photo credit: Matt Crockett

Guys & Dolls - Review

Bridge Theatre, London

*****

Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser

Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Gina Beck and Michael Simkins

There can come a time in a show’s evolution when the chemistry of its casting leads to theatrical magic.

Chemistry? Yea, chemistry….

So it is with Nicholas Hytner’s Guys & Dolls that has been playing at the Bridge Theatre for the last 18 months but which now, with the latest luxurious additions to its company, sees this beautifully written show reach new heights of musical comedy alongside touchingly poignant humanity.

Playing Sarah Brown, Gina Beck is one of the new signings and she is simply sensational. Beck first displays her vocal magnificence in I’ll Know, a gorgeously crafted duet sung alongside George Ioannides’ Sky Masterson and a number that is rarely performed quite so powerfully. Beck goes on to hold that standard throughout the evening - even revealing a profound depth of tenderness in her connection with Arvide Abernathy (yet another recent star addition to the cast in the form of the always brilliant Michael Simkins) as he sings his worldly wisdom to her with More I Cannot Wish You. Ioannides is a masterful Masterson. Cooler than a Cuban Dulche De Leche it is clear to see why Sarah Brown falls for his charm – and his voice is a treat too. 

The show’s other two leads are Owain Arthur as Nathan Detroit, the hapless promoter of New York’s floating crap game and Timmika Ramsay as Miss Adelaide, his long-suffering fiancée. Arthur does a fine job, capturing Detroit’s wry and self-deprecating humour. Ramsay, with more mink than a mink and a bold, brazen, buxom sexuality to her performance is just terrific. Vocally outstanding, with a fine understanding of the frustrated complexities that make up her character, she’s a treat to watch – and in her duet with Sarah, Marry The Man Today, the essence of this show’s celebration of the frailties of the human character is delivered faultlessly by both women.

In short, this current iteration of the show’s four key roles, all replacements from the cast of 18 months ago, is quite possibly the best to have been performed in the UK this century.

Elsewhere Cameron Johnson has grown (if that was even possible) into the story’s lovable rogue Big Jule and if Jonathan Andrew Hume’s multiple encores for his Sit Down You’re Rocking The Boat may seem just a tad contrived, the infectious delight that Hume brings to the song is worth every repeated chorus.

Staged immersively, with platforms that rise and fall amidst the promenading audience, Bunny Christie’s design remains a sumptuous take on the Big Apple – while perched aloft, Tom Brady’s band is equally outstanding.

With the Bridge having announced that the show will close in early 2025, it is unlikely that a production of Guys & Dolls of this imaginative genius will grace a UK stage for some time. Until then, do not wait, until then, get along… 

If you’ve never seen the show before then Hytner’s production, graced by Arlene Phillips’ choreography is a must-see – and if you’ve already seen this South Bank spectacular, go again! 

Runs until 4th January 2025

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

A Night With Janis Joplin - Review

Peacock Theatre, London

****

Written and directed by Randy Johnson

Mary Bridget Davies

Doing what it says on the tin, A Night with Janis Joplin proves to be just that. Mary Bridget Davies has crossed the pond to re-create her Tony-nominated take on Joplin and she is sensational.

Davies’ pipes are a wonder, as over a couple of hours including interval she tackles some of the singer’s most famous songs with a vocal magnificence. Massive numbers such as Me And Bobbie McGee, Stay With Me and Piece Of My Heart are delivered with an authenticity that has to be heard to be believed. Randy Johnson’s links may be corny and melancholic, particularly when Joplin’s death at that tragically portentous age of 27 is barely glossed over, but when the music is this good, that is of little consequence.

Davies is supported by an equally brilliant quartet of Kalisha Amaris, Georgia Bradshaw, Choolwe Laina Muntanga and Danielle Steers who between them offer up vocal nods to classic Motown and blues legends including Aretha Franklin and Bessie Smith. 

Of equal talent on stage are Iestyn Griffiths’ eight-piece band - all fabulous but with special mention to guitarists Kit Craig-Lowdon and Jack Hartigan who between them drive the rock-based energy of the Joplin performance.

Janis Joplin was one of America’s rock legends and this show is a powerful tribute.

Runs until 28th September

Photo credit: Danny Kaan

The Grapes of Wrath - Review

National Theatre, London

***

Written by John Steinbeck

Adapted by Frank Galati

Directed by Carrie Cracknell

Cherry Jones

Frank Galaţi’s 1990 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic makes for an interesting glimpse of American history. The 1930s Dust Bowl, coming hard on the heels of the Great Depression and Wall Street Crash saw the fabled american dream evolve into a nightmare for millions, with countless Mid-Westerners migrating towards California, in desperate search of a living.

Simply staged, Carrie Cracknell’s production that comes in at just under three hours mixes quality with tedium. Greg Hicks and Cherry Jones as Pa and Ma Joad are a magnificent focal pair of Oklahomans leading their family west. Hicks only recently played an onstage farmer in the musical Oklahoma!, so there is a theatrical symmetry in seeing his decline from playing a prosperous landowner to an impoverished migrant.  Both he and Jones bring a perfectly weighted gravitas to their family’s struggles and amidst a luxuriously cast company of 27, there is standout work from Harry Treadaway as their son Tom and Mirren Mack as daughter Rose of Sharon.

Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel is brutal in its portrayal of the depths of the era’s hardships, not least in its harrowing finale that Cracknell and Galati effectively retain. The show however slips into cliché too often, with Maimuna Memon’s songs that have been written for this production. The #RefugeesWelcome theme to Memon’s lyrics offers a clumsily crass attempt to link a contemporary political relevance with Steinbeck’s magnum-opus and proves to be a disappointing distraction.

Good in parts.

Runs until 14th September

Photo credit: Richard Hubert Smith

Antony & Cleopatra - Review

Shakespeare's Globe

**

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Blanche McIntyre

Nadia Nadarajah and John Hollingworth

There are occasions in the theatre when a play is less than the sum of its parts. So it is with Blanche McIntyre’s take on Anthony &  Cleopatra that boldly translates Shakespeare’s prose into a hybrid of spoken verse and British Sign Language (BSL).

John Hollingworth and Nadia Nadarajah play the famed titular lovers. Hollingworth delivers an adequate Anthony as Nadarajah serves up an equally impassioned Egyptian Queen. However, with Nadarajah communicating her entire role through BSL, those audience members not fluent in that language are forced to follow her dialogue via the surtitle screens placed at gallery level around the Globe’s open space.

While the projected words enable the narrative to be followed, the scrolling text screens completely distract one from the strengths (or weaknesses) of Nadarajah’s performance. One is looking at the screen, not the actor and as a consequence much of the power of the verse is lost. The same frustration applies to those other characters in the story delivered through BSL, where again one’s eyes are taken away from the stage by the projections.

Daniel Millar shines as Enobarbus, notably in his famous description of Cleopatra’s barge, but such moments are rare.

An ambitious production that ultimately fails to deliver.

Runs until 15th September

Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz

The 39 Steps - Review

Trafalgar Theatre, London

****

Adapted by Patrick Barlow

From an original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimond

Directed by Maria Aitken

Tour directed by Nicola Samer

Tom Byrne

Returning to the West End after nine years, Maria Aitken’s affectionate tribute to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 movie remains a fabulous fusion of stagecraft, wit and British interwar history.

The 39 Steps famously sees Englishman Richard Hannay caught up in a web of intrigue and espionage as he unwittingly stumbles across a fiendish spy-ring and finds himself the prime suspect for a murder he did not commit. The ripping yarn has him fleeing London aboard the night train to Scotland, pursued by both the police and the villains, with scenes of high drama and derring-do on the train, the Forth Bridge and amidst the remote villages and misty moors of the Highlands.

What makes Aitken’s piece (her work recreated in this production by Nicola Samer) quite so delightful is how she achieves such spectacular thrills and spills with just a cast of four. Using the simplest of suggestive props and lighting and the ingenious conceit of laughing fondly at the stiff upper lip of a time gone by, a re-creation emerges of so many of the wonderful cameos and caricatures that Hitchcock so painstakingly wove into his film.

Tom Byrne is Hannay, on-stage throughout and the only member of the quartet to play just one character from start to finish. Playing the three women with whom Hannay interacts is Safeena Ladha, while picking up the multitude of other roles from Scotland Yard detectives, to shady criminals, to enchanting Highland crofters (to name but a few of their roles) are Eugene McCoy and Maddie Rice in a breathtaking whirl of interchanging characters. The thrills and spills are cleverly played out along with a generous measure of nods to other Hitchcock classics written into the script.

A familiarity with the 1935 film, while not essential, is useful if only to recognise just how ingenious and true to the original, Aitken’s staging proves to be.

The 39 Steps is gorgeous theatre, brilliantly performed. To quote the story’s Mr Memory: “Am I right?” Definitely!

Runs until 28th September

Photo credit: Mark Senior

I Ran With The Gang - Review

Stage Door Theatre, London

***

Written and directed by Liam Rudden

In its first ever London production, Liam Rudden’s tribute to Alan Longmuir, the original Bay City Roller, plays for one week at the Stage Door Theatre above Covent Garden’s Prince of Wales pub.

In a show that's more monologue than musical (this ain't no Jersey Boys) Michael Karl-Lewis plays Young Alan, effectively narrating Longmuir's story and that of the group he founded, the Bay City Rollers, a band that for a chunk of the 1970s saw "Rollermania" dominate the global pop scene.

What this show lacks in panache it more than compensates for in audience enthusiasm. Longmuir’s story is an impressive tale of beating the odds to reach global stardom before the band was to fall apart, but the two-dimensional nature of Rudden's narrative makes for heavy going at times. A heartfelt photo-tribute to Longmuir that wraps up the first phase of this hour long one-act show shares a sentimental intimacy that seems best preserved for a more private gathering, rather than a theatre-show.

No matter - the evening’s second shift sees Karl-Lewis and his fellow performers Ross Jamieson and Lee Fanning leading a glorious kitsch singalong to a backing-track powered medley of the band’s greatest hits. Guilty secret: I might just have sung along to Bye Bye Baby….

The theatre was packed with a mature tartan-waving throng. With most of the Bay City Rollers’ hard-core following now drawing their pensions, to see such a grey-haired mob up on their feet and rocking to the music was as much of a tribute to hip surgery and HRT, as it was to the chart-topping songs.

Strictly for the fans who won’t let the music die.

Runs until 17th August

On location with Martin Kemp

 

Jonathan Baz and Martin Kemp

I spent a day on location with Martin Kemp, currently shooting his latest starring role in serial killer movie Doctor Plague.

Kemp stars as jaded detective John Verney who is on the trail of an ancient cult of Plague Doctors which is cutting a bloody swathe through the London underworld. Dismissed by his superiors as gang on gang killings, the murders draw Verney into an obsessive maze of a secret society conspiracy with links to the Jack The Ripper murders of 1888, putting him and his family in grave danger. Above is a first look.

Joining Kemp in the cast are Peter Woodward (Babylon 5), David Yip (A View To A Kill), Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott (Renegades), Wendy Glenn (You’re Next) and Daisy Beaumont (The World Is Not Enough).

Jonathan Sothcott produces for his indie genre studio Shogun Films (Helloween) with Ben Fortune directing. The screenplay is by Robert Dunn (Knightfall) based on an idea by Robert Geoffrey Hughes. Director of photography is James Westlake (Helloween). Executive producers include Jamie McLeod-Ross and Charley McDougall of Empire Studios, Nigel Smith and Keith Reilly.

Sothcott noted: “One of the best-loved and most recognisable faces in the UK, Martin Kemp has achieved a constant evolution of reinvention for new audiences in the last decade, but I’m delighted he’s back in front of the camera in this gritty horror serial killer movie, facing off against an instantly-iconic enemy and navigating a seemingly endless labyrinth of twists and turns. I know his legion of fans are going to love it and he’s backed by an exceptionally strong cast of terrific British actors. Doctor Plague has instant cult movie written all over it.”

Slated for release in the first half of 2025, look out for Doctor Plague. 

The Birthday Party - Review

Ustinov Studio, Bath

*****

Written by Harold Pinter

Directed by Richard Jones

Jane Horrocks, Carla Harrison-Hodge and John Marquez

One of Pinter’s earliest plays, The Birthday Party’s plot defies explanation. Written in the 1950s and set in a boarding house in an unnamed English seaside town, Meg and Petey own the establishment, Stanley is a long-term resident, Lulu is a glamorous local girl and friend of the household and then, upsetting the already fragile equilibrium, come Goldberg and McCann who throw this gentle world into complete and unsettling disarray. Imagine, if you will, a fusion of the BBC’s Fawlty Towers, ITV’s George and Mildred, with a dash of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho thrown in for good measure and even then, in all honesty, you will not be any closer to unfathoming where this story has come from, nor how it ends. But you know what? That really doesn’t matter. Pinter’s finest writing is pure Absurdism and for such writing to take flight requires a high-calibre, finely-tuned company – and it is such a troupe that Richard Jones has assembled in Bath.

Jane Horrocks is Meg and such is this actor's versatility that it is almost impossible to believe that it is Horrocks playing this apparently small-minded and delightfully dotty little landlady. Pinter’s language fuses the everyday and the mundane – and Horrocks’ interpretation of the mundanity is simply a joy to behold. Nicholas Tennant is Petey, a municipal deckchair attendant – again a character from the most ordinary slice of life, and yet when given Pinter’s dialogue, elevates the everyday into excellence.

Sam Swainsbury is Stanley, the birthday celebrant and a man with a clearly damaged background, although the cause and circumstances of whatever trauma has befallen him is never revealed. Swainsbury captures Stanley’s mental fragility in a beautifully weighted performance that has the audience crying out for him with their empathy. Carla Harrison-Hodge plays Lulu in what is one of the play’s smaller roles, but to which she delivers an enormous amount of (ultimately) damaged complexity.

Sam Swainsbury and Jane Horrocks

And then there are Goldberg and McCann, the villains of the piece, played by John Marquez and Caolan Byrne respectively. Marquez is brilliant in capturing so much of what makes Goldberg evil. Is it the predatory sleaze or the wafer-thin veneer of polished charm? Either way Marquez’s (and Byrne’s) mastery of Pinter’s quickfire interrogatory style is outstanding. And again, for both characters to slip into the Jewish or Irish-Catholic heritage of their respective youths is yet another masterclass in outstanding writing, brilliantly performed.

John Marquez, Carla Harrison-Hodge and Caolan Byrne

And for all of the characters, from Meg to McCann, Pinter makes it clear that there is so much more to them than meets the eye.

This production of The Birthday Party needs to follow Jones’ recent Machinal into a London run. A gripping, complex, troubling play that is by no means an evening of easy entertainment. It is however, flawless theatre.

Runs to 31st August

Photo credit: Foteini Christofilopoulou

Fiddler On The Roof - Review

Open Air Theatre, London

***

Adam Dannheiser

Book by Joseph Stein

Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

Music by Jerry Bock

Directed by Jordan Fein

Much like the village of Anatevka itself, Jordan Fein’s production of Fiddler On The Roof is a microcosmic melting pot, not only of the marvellous but also of the mediocre. It gives a curious message that the show's producers have decided that its main publicity image promoting and celebrating the show, should be of Chava (played by Hannah Bristow), the one daughter of Tevye and Golde who deserts her Jewish heritage to marry outside the faith, rather than upholding 'tradition'. Notwithstanding this unusual bias, Fein’s interpretation has managed to retain the show’s cultural essence.

This is of course the first Fiddler On The Roof to play in London since the horrors of October 7 2023. The pogrom that befalls a community of dancing, celebrating Jews and which closes the first act, leaving Anatevka in flames, chills in its identical ideology of hatred that led to the massacre at Israel’s Nova Music Festival last year.

Hannah Bristow as Chava in the show's main publicity image

Fein makes gorgeous use of Raphael Papo as The Fiddler. His violinist serves as a musical interpretation of Tevye’s (Adam Dannheiser) Jewish conscience, and intriguingly is rarely offstage. This is a beautiful touch, for Jerry Bock’s melodies written for the Fiddler deserve the centre-stage attention given to them by Fein.

Dannheiser himself (last seen by this reviewer as an outstanding Lazar Wolf on Broadway) is an adequate Tevye. Vocally strong, but occasionally disconnected, particularly in his brief exchanges his God, that feel as though they are played more for laughs than for sincerity. Lara Pulver is Golde, in possibly the worst miscasting to have been seen in years. Pulver is one of the more gifted musical theatre performers of her generation but her Golde lacks a shtetl-based warmth. Clipped and reserved, she appears more Lucille Frank (her outstanding 2007 role of an Atlantan Jewish spouse subject to horrific antisemitism) rather than Tevye’s loyal wife of 25 years.  Vocally strong, but with barely any detectable acting through song, her Golde disappoints. Similarly Dan Wolff’s Motel fails to convince us of the sincerity of his love for Liv Andrusier’s Tzeitel. The show however is in its early days and both of these flaws can yet be remedied by Fein.

Tom Scutt’s set is enchanting, a roofed canopy across much of the theatre’s stage, itself topped with fields of corn. It is a visual that works stunningly. Tevye’s Dream too is a comic delight that has been cleverly conceived. Upstage, Dan Turek’s 11-piece band are a delight. Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s songs are timeless works of genius and for the most part, especially in the company numbers, are worth the price of the ticket.

Runs until 21st September

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

A Chorus Line - Review

Sadler's Wells, London

*****

Music by Marvin Hamlisch

Lyrics by Edward Kleban

Book by James Kirkwood & Nicholas Dante

Directed by Nikolai Foster

The cast of A Chorus Line

Nikolai Foster created a magnificent revival of A Chorus Line at Leicester’s Curve Theatre in 2021. Even then, the brilliance of this production cried out for a wider audience, and so it is that London now has a month to enjoy this show with its residency at Sadler’s Wells before it tours across the country.

It has been 11 years since the A Chorus Line last played in the capital, a long wait to witness such a class act of a show and Foster’s interpretation has only improved with time. At just under two hours, this one-act record-breaker upends the traditions of musical theatre. There are no leading characters whose arcs we follow, rather an ingenious confection of the lives and histories of a fictional Broadway chorus line (with narratives drawn from real-life), all desperate to be chosen from the final-round audition that forms the backbone of the show. 

Adam Cooper and Carly Mercedes Dyer reprise their roles of the fictional show’s director Zach and Cassie an auditionee with more of a back-story than meets the eye. Both are sublimely skilled performers making captivating work not only of James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante’s fiendishly challenging book, but also of Ellen Kane’s choreography, with Dyer’s take on The Music And The Mirror proving breath-taking in her interpretation. Both Curve and Sadler’s Wells offer massive stages and Kane’s work, matched to a band that is intriguingly housed in an on-stage cube of gig boxes, uses that space to the full.

Most of the cast in this Curve revival may be new to the show but Foster has selected his actors wisely and they are all, to a person, performers at the very top of their game. The humanity that underlies each of their characters is sometimes funny but often heartbreaking and to name but a few of these gems, Amy Thornton, Lydia Bannister and Kate Parr as Sheila, Bebe and Maggie respectively make gorgeously poignant work of At The Ballet and Manuel Pacific has us in the palm of his hand as he delivers Paul’s devastating monologue of family dysfunctionality. Jocasta Almgill is entrusted with the role of Diana that includes the show’s hit-song, What I Did For Love. Almgill may have sung the lyric “look my eyes are dry”, but across the stalls on press night, quite a few eyes were moist at her delivery.

Throughout, under Matthew Spalding’s musical direction, Hamlisch’s score is handled beautifully. Grace Smart’s set design is neatly simple as the show demands. Howard Hudson’s lighting however is sensational, comprising ingenious use of rows of spotlights that rise and fall in carefully co-ordinated sequences, evoking scenes that range from intimacy to full on Broadway pizzazz. The tour’s lighting crew will have their work cut out on the road, re-calibrating this spectacular rig for each different venue.

It says much for the strength of the nation’s regional theatre that three of the finest musicals to be playing this summer, Oliver!, Barnum and A Chorus Line have all originated outside of London. With this interpretation however, Nikolai Foster has possibly created the definitive British production of this enigmatic show. Just go!

Runs until August 25th. Then on tour.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Shrek The Musical - Review

Eventim Apollo, London

***

Music by Jeanine Tesori
Lyrics and book by David Lindsay-Abaire
Co-directed by Samuel Holmes and choreographer Nick Winston

Antony Lawrence

Packed with adoring children Hammersmith Apollo hosts Shrek The Musical for a brief Summer residence.

Adapted from the Dreamworks movie, Antony Lawrence plays the eponymous ogre with Joanne Clifton as Princess Fiona, the love of his life. Their acting is lovely in this modern fairytale with the strangest of endings. The rest of the company are also a class act. Todrick Hall is an impressive Donkey with more than a hint of Eddie Murphy in his flair and James Gillan is an appropriately villainous Lord Farquaad. A shout-out too for Cherece Richards whose singing as the Dragon was fabulous.

Nick Winston’s choreography is a delight with some impressive company numbers, not least in the routines of tap-dancing rats and three well-drilled blind mice.

Ben Cracknell’s lighting and Ben Atkinson’s music arrangements are slick - but elsewhere production values are creaky with an over reliance on unimpressive projections and poor sound balancing, with too many lyrics lost in the Apollo’s cavernously poor acoustics. Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire’s songs do not match the wit of the movie’s original scriptwriting quartet and there are moments when the musical lacks pace.

Kids will love and remember this show as a fun trip to the theatre.

Runs until 31st August

Oliver! - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

*****

Music, lyrics and book by Lionel Bart

Freely adapted from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist

Revised by Cameron Mackintosh

Directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne

Simon Lipkin

Matthew Bourne’s production of Oliver! will quite possibly be the the most glorious musical revival to open in the UK this year. Cast with the cream of the country’s musical theatre talent, Cameron Mackintosh’s revisions of Lionel Bart’s show achieve the rare distinction, that many strive for but very few achieve, of taking a classic and making it even better.

Bourne again works alongside designer Lez Brotherston, in a partnership that has lasted decades and which sees this national treasure of a musical visually re-imagined yet still authentically Victorian, with bridges and revolves and swirling steampunk ironwork transporting us across the England of the story.

The kids are gorgeous, and Bourne’s direction and choreography sees the show kick-off with Food Glorious Food that is as imaginative as it is evocatively charming. On press night it was the young and talented Cian Eagle-Service in the title role, beautifully voiced and with a charming confidence that held the narrative along with our belief in him.

The show's workhouse scenes introduce us to the despicable Mr Bumble and Widow Corney luxuriously played here by the ridiculously talented Oscar Conlon-Morrey and Katy Secombe. Musical theatre cognoscenti will know that the 1968 movie saw Mr Bumble played by Secombe’s father, the late and much loved comic-genius Harry Secombe and Secombe more than honours her father’s memory with her take on the amorous widow. Conlon-Morrey complements her in his skilled and hilarious interpretation of blustering pomposity. A nod too to Stephen Matthews and Jamie Birkett who capture the ghoulish comedy of the Sowerberrys, the undertakers to whom Oliver is sold by Bumble.

Katy Secombe and Oscar Conlon-Morrey

Brotherston’s set ingeniously shifts us to London where Billy Jenkins’ Artful Dodger gives just the right Cockney swagger to Consider Yourself before introducing Oliver, and the audience to Fagin. Much like Steven Spielberg makes his audience wait before unveiling the shark in Jaws, so too does Bart allow almost an hour of the show to (gloriously) pass by before revealing this most complex of characters.

Simon Lipkin's Fagin brings an earthy, magnetic, Sephardic interpretation to one of musical theatre’s most frequently caricatured Jews. Bourne skilfully avoids any classic antisemitic tropes in this Fagin, with Lipkin displaying an intriguing, enchanting presence in his performance. Vocally he is magnificent, owning the Festival Theatre's massive stage in his Reviewing The Situation, with a subtle klezmer-esque nuance to some of the musical arrangement of the number. Lipkin also offers inspired moments of physical comedy, and study him closely for just a hint of Max Bialystock's tragi-comedy in this most glorious of Fagins.

Shanay Holmes is Nancy with a take on this intriguing woman that almost explains her love for such a violent partner as Bill Sikes. Holmes brings power, passion and pathos to the role, wonderfully taking Chichester’s roof off (twice) with As Long As He Needs Me. Opposite Holmes, Aaron Sidwell brings a chilling menace to Sikes.

Under the stage, Graham Hurman’s orchestra of 13 make glorious work of the rich score. 

This fantastic show, with one hit song following another, sees Mackintosh and Bourne open up the genius of Bart’s writing to dive even deeper into the composer/lyricist’s understanding of Dickens, London and above all the human condition. With musicals most frequently being set in the USA, stories steeped in English culture are few and far between. This Oliver! is amongst the finest.

Never before has this show offered more!

Runs until 7th September

Photo credit: Johan Persson