Snakehead - Review

Hope Theatre, London

****

Written and directed by Samuel Rees

Sian Maxwell

Snakehead is a new play that proves all you need is a good story and a passionate actress to make an evening of classy pub-theatre worthwhile.

Sian Maxwell is M, a woman whose emotions, passion, piercing blue eyes and good strong voice make the show. M’s story and experiences are upsetting. In her monologue we learn of the abuse that she has suffered at the hands of a manipulative and wealthy man, with her narrative forcing the audience to ruminate on society and the double standards by which men and women can be judged.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy is the number of women who continue to experience similar trauma today. The slut-shaming of women, while failing to hold men responsible for their actions, continues to prevail.

A neat dramatic touch sees M expose her emotions though music. The stronger the emotion, the heavier the music, performed very well on the night by Max Alexander Taylor.

Snakehead is powerful and compelling gig-theatre.

Runs until 24th June

Reviewed by Eris

Her Aching Heart - Review

Hope Theatre, London

****

Written by Bryony Lavery

Music by Ian Brandon

Directed by Matthew Parker

Colette Eaton and Naomi Todd

It might be more of a 'play with songs' than a full blown musical but Bryony Lavery's Her Aching Heart now playing at the Hope Theatre, is one of those rarely performed gems that displays just the sort of quirky wit in its writing that many of today's new musical offerings could do well to emulate.

The time-hopping two-hander sees Colette Eaton and Naomi Todd play contemporary women Harriet and Molly who are both reading the faux bodice-ripper Her Aching Heart and who fall in love as the evening pans out. What gives the show such glorious heart however, is how Eaton and Todd drop in an out of a range of characters in the novel they are engrossed in, as lesbian passions smoulder both on and off the page. The fiction within a fiction is wonderfully pastiched and amongst the Mills and Boon clichés of its Gothic romance there are nosings of Austen, D H Lawrence and even a hint of Oscar Wilde. The songs are well pitched too, with Ian Brandon having written new melodies for Lavery's now 25 year old text and lyrics.

Both performers are beautifully voiced and equally matched, with Harriett's solo Good Manners along with the duetted It's Spring - Hearts Mend being perhaps the musical highlights. Producer Andrea Leoncini has invested thought into his creative team. Anthony Whiteman's modest choreography enhances the work, Rachael Ryan's designs are amusingly kitsch and imaginative, while Alex Payne's fight direction of a full blown sword fight is as wonderfully overplayed as it is thrilling!

Unpretentious and never taking itself too seriously, Her Aching Heart represents much of what makes London's fringe theatre scene so rich and wonderful.

Runs to 23rd December

Photo credit: Roy Tan

Steel Magnolias - Review

Hope Theatre, London


****


Written by Robert Harding
Directed by Matthew Parker

Maggie Robson

A beautifully bittersweet comedy/drama, set entirely in a small Louisiana town’s hair salon, Steel Magnolias focusses on six women from all walks of life who we discover have a bond between them stronger than the volumes of hairspray securing their expertly coiffured styles.

Written by Robert Harding, the book is based on his experience of his sister's death and by the end of the show’s press night never mind a dry eye, there wasn't a person in the audience who wasn't sobbing uncontrollably.

Samantha Shellie's performance as Shelby is key to the plot. Her fast approaching wedding and dire health conditions knit the piece together and Shellie's understated performance lends itself well to the piece, particularly in contrast to the high energy given from all six actresses that does not drown her out.

Playing Shelby’s mother, Stephanie Beattie is M'Lynn. Throughout the narrative we see M'Lynn constantly battling with her daughter over the wedding and her fragile health conditions and her future. She may be a a concerned controlling mother, but she has good intentions. The raw emotion though, that she portrays in the final scene, is remarkable.

There is similar excellence from the redoubtable Maggie Robson playing Ouiser Boudreaux. Robson’s manic characterisation of the older Southern woman is sheer perfection, from her ever changing voice to her eccentric movement. Quite simply she is a woman who has seen it all, done it all and we love her for it.  And as Truvy, the salon’s owner, Jo Wickham is a treat. Wickham can shift from have the audience clutching their sides with laughter to holding their breath trying not to sob within the space of about 30 seconds. The care and time that she has invested into her character is evident.

Matthew Parker does a fine job working within the Hope Theatre’s compact space. And paired with Rachael Ryan’s fun and engaging set that creates a fully functioning salon, complete with stationary blow-dryer and hair washing station, the audience are made to feel engulfed in the on stage action.  Throughout, the cast do themselves proud offering a whirlwind of female empowerment and a masterclass in acting.

Runs until 3rd September

Reviewed by Charlotte Darcy

Photo credit: LH Photoshots

Nude - Review

Hope Theatre, London


***


Written by Paul Hewitt
Directed by Ian Nicholson

The company

Inside the narrow space of The Hope Theatre in Islington, Ian Nicholson directs Nude, Paul Hewitt’s intense new work about love, life and fate that is deeply inspired by the classic verse, The Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam.

A man and a woman, strangers, inhabit Minglu Wang’s minimalistic neon-lit cube. They bump into each other, fall in love and go on to share and cope with both the joys of happy moments along with the anger and frustration the sad times, until a tragic end. Outside, like voyeurs of their intimate fortunes, is the audience. Between the two, physically and symbolically, we find Fate, half omnipresent narrator and half puppet-master of their lives.

Here, Fate is real and played by a white-clad Roshni Rathore, moving around the space, in and out of the on-stage frame. Intertwining her epic narration with the couple’s earthly dialogues she seems to dance with a language that is ethereal yet truthful. Fate is clearly the voice of something bigger, destined to exist long after the end of this particular love story. Rathore’s ability to embody the super-humanity of her character is a high note of the production.

Hewitt’s protagonists are Man and Woman, two archetypal, emblematic figures that are rightly unnamed – they might be us – and they engage powerfully with the audience.

As Man, Edward Nash’s performance is genuine and wholehearted. He successfully conveys his character’s development over the years from clumsy lover to cheating partner, to old codger.

Woman, is played by Michelle Fahrenheim with an overwhelming intensity. In particular her long monologue about her disease and imminent death is touching and honest.

At just 60 minutes long this is a brief and delicate piece of theatre. Perhaps not especially innovative in its plot (a little reminiscent of Nick Payne’s Constellations) Nude makes for an enjoyable and well acted production.

Runs until 21st May - then tours

Reviewed by Simona Negretto

Photo credit: Helen Murray

Penetrator - Review

The Hope Theatre, London

****

Written by Anthony Neilson

Directed by Phil Croft

With much in the way of 90’s revivals and a quantifiable number of in-yer-face productions hitting London’s theatre scene this year, the resurrection of Anthony Neilson's Penetrator at the Hope Theatre is nothing if not timely.

Phil Croft directs a sharply comical and ultimately scary production of this grotesque and brutally honest play. Max and Alan are unemployed twentysomething friends, home-alone, wasting away the hours watching porn and re-inventing, with ingenious wit, songs from their past to re-live the moment in which their lives had seemingly more purpose and direction. And then there’s Tadge, the other guy. A dark and intensely weird guy who brings with him a totally different atmosphere and shifts the dynamic of the play. 

Tom Manning’s Tadge captures an edge of psychosis and raw, unadulterated truth with a finesse that is genuinely frightening and ultimately very saddening to behold. Set up as an outsider from the outset. Alex Pardey’s characterisation of the slobbish, Max, is an uncomfortably familiar reflection of today’s middle class, sustained-by-parents graduate, possessed of a gift for comic timing as cutting and enjoyable as a young Ricky Gervais. There is a contrast with the sweet, house proud demeanour of Alan portrayed charmingly by Jolyon Price as a gentle, caring, embodiment of the innocence of the play, with his juvenile obsession for his teddy bears, which get repeatedly abused, much to his discomfort. Ironically, given how the play unfolds, Alan’s virtue along with that of the teddy bears, is one of the most successfully played motifs in this production. 

When Tadge arrives, having escaped a murky military past, at this harmless Hackney Hipster home, the tension is palpable. Each character’s past is carefully un-earthed to reveal hidden truths about their childhood friendships that none of the boys were expecting to face. This rejuvenated revival however littered with uneasy eruptions of laughter, nerf guns and childhood cartoon duvets, has a viciousness that evokes the feral nature of William Goldings’ Lord of the Flies. Racy and in-yer-face for sure, yet at the centre of this coming of age tragi-comic oddity beats a powerful dark heart.

Runs until 22nd August

Guest reviewer: Daphne Penn