Giant in cinemas - Review

***

Written by Mark Rosenblatt

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

2026 135minutes

John Lithgow

Following its acclaimed runs in both London and on Broadway, Mark Rosenblatt’s Giant is now streaming to cinemas worldwide. Recorded at the West End’s Harold Pinter Theatre, the video captures the award-winning brilliance of John Lithgow’s portrayal of Roald Dahl, one of the most celebrated children’s authors of the 20th century.

This website has already considered the strengths and weaknesses of Rosenblatt’s play in earlier reviews. To reflect upon the script now only confirms its flaws and, notwithstanding the writer’s unequivocal condemnation of Dahl’s vile opinions, the play distinctly and disappointingly lacks objective balance in its comments upon Israel.

A recording of live theatre is never going to replicate the on-stage experience. It may well preserve the production for posterity, but plays were never intended for the big (or small) screen. Movies are all about close-ups that define an actor’s interpretation of the character being played. Good live theatre however – and make no mistake, Giant, seen live, was a technically outstanding piece of stagecraft – gives an acting company a tougher challenge, to effectively command the stage in the moment. On-stage the actors are not seen in close-up, but rather their challenge is to project their personae into the auditorium, a discipline far removed from the comparative intimacy of playing to the camera. 

This intimacy is neutered in the video recording of a stage show, delivering a poor compromise, almost the 'worst of both worlds', that fails to reach the standards of excellence that should be associated with both cinema and theatre. To compound matters further, the quality of the sound recording of the performance at the Pinter is occasionally awful. If the production team can re-engineer some of the show's soundtrack, it will be no bad thing. 

A flawed script, and now with technical glitches but John Lithgow remains outstanding.

Screening in cinemas worldwide from November 19th

Hooray For Hollywood - Review

Wilton's Music Hall, London

*****

Liza Pulman and Joe Stilgoe

There are occasions in the life of a reviewer when five-stars for a performance or production are simply not enough. So it is with Hooray For Hollywood, a stunning revue of songs from the movies performed by Liza Pulman and Joe Stilgoe. It is not just that the pair have compiled a selection of melodies spanning from the early 20th century through to the present day. Rather, it is their wit and excellence that has gone into the songs’ adaptation and delivery that makes this evening such a flawless combination of theatre and cabaret. 

Pulman and Stilgoe’s technical skills are unsurpassed. He on the piano (and briefly on bass) with not a printed sheet of music to be seen, whirls through the programme with the air and genius of a relaxed virtuoso. As Pulman sings I Got Rhythm, a song originally from George Gershwin’s Broadway hit Girl Crazy but which made it onto the screen as a part of An American In Paris, Stilgoe accompanies. But when the song reaches its bridge, Stilgoe performs a breathtaking Gershwin mini-medley, going so far as to include a hint of Rhapsody In Blue! 

Dotted throughout the setlist are a number of sublimely structured two-part harmonies. From My Fair Lady, Wouldn’t It Be Loverly is fused with I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face as For Good from Wicked melds mellifluously into Something Good from The Sound of Music. The musical wizardry continues as Pulman and Stilgoe work absolute magic in their combination of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s People Will Say We’re In Love (Oklahoma!) with If I Loved You (Carousel).

A brief compilation of song-free music from the movies led into the interval, with Stilgoe tinkling his way through extracts from Jaws (complete with a hilariously brilliant vocal interpretation of the brass lines from the movie’s theme) Star Wars, E.T., Raiders Of The Lost Ark. When he'd finished with John Williams, snatches of Ennio Morricone's Cinema Paradiso and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly completed this delicious treat of a performance. 

And there was so much more. Hits from the RKO golden-era of musical movies included Cheek To Cheek (from Top Hat) and The Way You Look Tonight (from Swing Time). A homely and tender tribute to both performers’ (equally talented) sets of parents led to an exquisite arrangement of Sunrise, Sunset from Fiddler on the Roof. A nod to Stephen Sondheim offered up delicately wondrous interpretations of Not While I’m Around from Sweeney Todd and No One Is Alone from Into The Woods. And finally, a much-deserved standing ovation led into an encore of West Side Story's Somewhere, again beautifully arranged into a two-part harmony.

Liza Pulman and Joe Stilgoe return for a Christmas special in December, with Hooray for Hollywood likely to be back on the road next year. Truly unmissable entertainment.

Photo credit: Matt Crockett

Maestro Of The Movies A Tribute to John Williams - Review

Royal Albert Hall, London

*****

Music composed by John Williams

Conducted by Anthony Gabriele

The music of John Williams needs no introduction. When it comes to Ocars, the five-times winner and 54-times nominated composer is unsurpassed, his movie scores having provided the soundtrack to most of our lifetimes.

For one glorious autumn evening at the Royal Albert Hall, the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Anthony Gabriele played a selection of Williams’s work that was simply sublime. A big screen suspended above the orchestra played extracts from most of the films included in the programme, and as the evening played out it proved as entertaining to watch the LSO’s gifted musicians as it was to enjoy the movie clips.

With the prolific Williams having scored more than 100 movies there was much to choose from, however the programme’s curators had worked wisely, sticking to the big movies that have achieved global recognition over recent decades. Jaws, Star Wars, E.T. and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind all made early appearances on the bill. As a selection of Harry Potter themes was played it was humbling to realise that a number of the musicians in the Royal Albert Hall playing live that evening had themselves performed the score on the original film’s recording.

Soloists on the night were sensational. On cello, David Cohen delivered With Malice Toward None from Lincoln while on violin, Kana Ohashi performed the hauntingly heartbreaking Theme from Schindler’s List. 

Anthony Gabriele

As always, Maestro Gabriele was magnificent, maintaining a perfect synchronicity between the screen and the musicians.

As the evening drew to a close the closing movements from E.T. were played, where we learned that Williams having scored the movie and not finding it easy to tailor the music to Spielberg’s scene selection, Spielberg decided to re-edit his movie so as to allow it to flow with Williams’s composition – putting the music first!

Encores including the glorious Raiders March and then the Imperial March from Star Wars saw the concert end on a spectacular high, defining John Williams as the Maestro of the Movies.

Photo credit: Christopher Mason

Polygon Portal - Review

Polygon Portal, London

Recently opened in the heart of Soho sits a stunning musical experience. Polygon Portal is not just a music room, but rather one that has been fitted out with a 360° spatial audio sound system that has to be heard to be believed.

Simply put, this is listening to music via a sound system that most of us can only dream of possessing.

Having negotiated rights with a number of record labels to commercially play albums that have been drawn from a wide range of artistes, the venue invites their guests into the room to experience the recording in acoustically exquisite surroundings. Several tiers of comfortable seating (choose the Togo loungers if available) allow one to relax, unwind, and, in the soft dimmed light, become immersed in the music. The experience is the antithesis of the AirPod generation, where music is piped into our skulls via miniscule speakers. The system at Polygon Portal is formed around 100(!) speakers, each delivering the recorded music from 47 points around the room.

On the night of this review the selected artist was Billy Joel, with two of Joel's albums from the 1980s (Glass Houses followed by An Innocent Man) played back to back. The choice of music is, of course, entirely subjective and a matter of taste. At Polygon Portal, even when knowing an album “inside out”, the joy comes from hearing it played back at such a phenomenal level of fidelity. Equally, should one wish to explore an unfamiliar artist or album, then the venue offers a fabulous envireonment in which to make that discovery.

I rarely take an alcoholic beverage with me into a performance. This was different. Unwinding on a Togo, a single-malt (double-measure) close at hand and listening to a handful of my favourite tunes, the evening was simply blissful.

https://polygon-productions.live/portal/

Speculations - Review

Marylebone Theatre, London

**

Written by Torben Betts

Directed by Trevor Nunn

Gloria Obianyo and Janie Dee

The premise behind Speculations - or to give the play its full title: Speculations On the Unexplained Deaths of Several American Icons - is strong. Torben Betts’s new play uses the narrative of an exchange between investigative journalist Dorothy Kilgallen (Janie Dee) and her young babysitter Flo (Gloria Obianyo) to explore the suspicious deaths of Lee Harvey Oswald and Norma Jeane aka Marilyn Monroe.

Directed by Trevor Nunn, although the two-act drama hints at a potentially exciting story this unfortunately is never realised as Betts’s script becomes quickly mired in sensational and cliché-ridden melodrama. Dee’s leading role is assured but her character rarely gets beyond two-dimensionality. Obianyo by contrast - describing aspects of Flo’s painful journey through the racism of the 1960’s United States - gives a performance that’s beautifully weighted and at times, deeply moving.

As Kilgallen describes her research to Flo, the action shifts firstly to Norma Jeane’s Californian bungalow bedroom and thence to a Louisianan bar. The bedroom action sees a bitter exchange between Jeane (Natalie Dunne) and her lover Robert Kennedy (Jolyon Coy), the country’s Attorney General and brother of the President. While Dunne captures the movie star’s tragic pathos, her presence fails to convince as an effective lookalike. The image of Marilyn Monroe was to become one of the 20th-century’s defining icons and this role could have been far better cast. Coy’s performance is dire, his American accent frequently slipping into posh-boy English as he bumbles his way through being the evening’s most thinly sketched out villain.

Down in Louisiana, Ferdy Roberts delivers a gem of a turn as Carlos Marcelo, a crime-boss and avowed enemy of both JFK and his brother. As he engages Lee Harvey Oswald (Joseph Potter) to assassinate the President, Roberts’s speeches crackle with a wryly convincing menace. 

Lee Newby’s imaginative set design sees three ingenious revolves transport the action from coast to coast. Once seen however, the impressive gimmickry of the whirling scenery becomes a repetitive predictability and, perhaps unintentionally, a reminder of the spinning visuals of the scene-changes in the Batman TV series of that era. 

As Joe Gillis sings in Sunset Boulevard: “It’s fun to see how bad bad writing can be”.

Runs until 17th January 2027

Photo credit: Helen Maybanks

Memoriam - Review

Southwark Playhouse, London

***

Written by Noga Flaishon

Directed by Daniel Goldman

Beverley Klein

Noga Flaishon’s Memoriam tackles an ambitious conceit. That the memory of the world’s last survivor of the Holocaust can be digitally extracted from their brain and preserved so as to be able to be downloaded by future viewers. This of course is science-fiction - always a challenging genre, even for the best of writers.

Flaishon then muddies her waters somewhat by introducing an exploitative commercial angle to the narrative, setting out the risks to any memory-donor of their own memory being edited to enhance the memory’s profitability. And all of a sudden what could have been a fascinating analysis of a new (albeit fictional) medium for telling the ghastly history of the Holocaust, gets lost in a mini-parable on the evils of capitalism.

Delivering a magnificent performance, Beverley Klein is Rivka, the 92 year-old survivor. Klein embodies the grievous pain that her character has endured, whilst still possessing a formidable energy and rumbustiousness that clearly defines her will to live and her ability indeed, to have survived. 

Rachel Barry plays her granddaughter (Rachel), who conveniently happens to be an accomplished acquirer of memories for the Memoriam Corporation, the ugly rapacious corporate and the baddy of the piece. While the character of Rachel may at times be clumsily created, Barry makes fine work of the script.

Ben Wiggins is Chris, Rachel’s boss and the story’s pantomime villain. Again, and from an acting perspective, Wiggins makes a decent fist of a very two-dimensional character. Ashley Margolis is Rachel’s brother David whose role in the tale amounts to little more than distracting sibling rivalries and squabbling. Completing the quintet is perhaps the most modest but perfectly formed role in the whole play, that of Jimena Larraguivel’s Becky who discovers first-hand how brutal the Memoriam Corporation’s editing process can be.

There is food for thought in this finely performed, but somewhat haphazard tale. 

Runs until 21st November

Photo credit: Charlie Flint

The Pianist - Review

Park Theatre, London

****

Music by Wladyslaw Szpilman

Based on the book by Wladyslaw Szpilman

Adapted and directed by Thom Southerland

Daniel Krikler and the cast of The Pianist

Thom Southerland’s adaptation of Wladyslaw Szpilman’s story of survival is a beautifully devastating work of theatre. The Pianist, already an acclaimed novel and Oscar garlanded movie tells of Szpilman’s life as a celebrated Warsaw pianist in the early 20th century.

Before the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, thus triggering the Second World War, Szpilman, together with his parents and siblings lived a gilded life in the capital. But as Jews now under the Nazi regime, the Szpilman family was to be brutally torn apart. That Southerland manages to convey the horror of the Holocaust with an understated yet menacing sensitivity within the confines of the Park Theatre's space, speaks volumes for his gift as a director.

The dramatic power of this musical is driven by Daniel Krikler’s compelling performance as Szpilman mirrored, as it were, by the virtuoso piano skills of Malcolm Forbes-Peckham, immaculately attired throughout in white tie and tails and who provides a breathtaking piano accompaniment to the narrative. That the musical’s score is entirely drawn from Szpilman’s compositions (with an occasional splash of Chopin) only adds to the evening’s poignancy. 

A company of 10 actor-musicians support the two leading performers, giving a finely crafted haunting charm to Szpilman’s melodies. This band has been lavishly furnished with string and wind players, creating perfect harmonies and solos that have to be amongst the finest on London’s fringe theatre scene. Notably strong accompanying performances in the cast come from Nitai Levi as Szpilman’s brother Henryk and Rosalind Ford as the pianist’s mother.

Whilst the music may well be exquisite, the show’s lyrics, that have been transplanted onto the score in more recent years by a team of no less than eight lyricists, frequently lack depth. With too much schmaltzy sentimentality they mask instances of emotional impact.

Southerland’s creative partners however match him well with their inspired work. Andrzej Goulding’s design that sees Forbe-Peckham and his grand piano waltzed around the stage on a wheeled platform is simple yet phenomenal. And Goulding's set that opens the show as a bleak wooden wall, carries ingenious projections that serve well to suggest the charm of pre-war Warsaw. The wall in turn morphs through to the barbed-wire enclosure of the city’s infamous ghetto, and ultimately into the infernal cattle trucks that were to transport the city’s Jews east to be murdered in their millions. Stunningly suggestive visuals. Gareth Tucker’s sound design that enhances so much of the evening’s narrative, ranging from bomb-blasts to children’s laughter is equally well crafted.

The Pianist is already a fine tribute to Wladyslaw Szpilman. One world-class lyricist could yet transform this piece into a world-class show.

Runs until 28th November

Photo credit: Anthony Leary-White