The Knowledge **** TNT

It’s back to school at the Bush where the small stage is wrapped round in blackboards for John Donnelly’s excellent new play, the first in its Schools Season.

The chalked on walls are as bleak and unwelcoming as the demountable outdoor classroom where newly qualified teacher Zoe has her work cut out dealing with a multiracial Citizenship class of four.

The only reason these fifteen year olds haven’t been excluded from their Essex school is statistical – it just wouldn’t look good on the OFSTED inspection report.

Daniel is black, has a troubled family background but writes poetry. Sal, who’s Asian, intends to remain a virgin until she’s married, whilst Karris only has one subject on her timetable – sex, and Mickey goes out of his way to make trouble every time he opens his mouth.

The teachers aren’t much better. Andrew Woodall’s Harry (the cynical fifty something headmaster) has one eye on his imminent retirement, and Zoe’s mentor, good-looking science teacher Maz, is the local lothario.

But staff and pupils are bound together until the teenagers reach school-leaving age – and Joanne Froggatt’s vulnerable Zoe is still being assessed.

Charlotte Gwinner’s production zaps along at a cracking rate and sizzles with the kind of dialogue which would horrify the Education Secretary (including Zoe’s exasperated instruction to Mickey to “put the condom on the prosthetic penis or get out.”) but makes for great entertainment.

Joe Cole, Kerron Darby, Holli Dempsey and Mandeep Dhillon impress as the pupils for whom education seems a pointless exercise, and Donnelly’s serious observations about the state of the education system and the problems of being a teacher hit home hard in an irresistibly convincing way.

Bush Theatre, Shepherds Bush Green W12 8QD Shepherds Bush tube (020 8743 5050) bushtheatre.co.uk
Till February 19 £15-£20

A Flea In Her Ear TNT

Love it or loathe it, farce has to be super-slick and seamless to work.

Disappointingly, Richard Eyre’s revival of Feydeau’s frenetic 1907 comedy of jealous misunderstandings rarely made me smile. Maybe the genre has had its day. 



Though precisely plotted, the antics of suddenly impotent Parisian insurance broker Chandebise (lured to the disreputable Hotel Coq d’Or by his wife’s attempt to uncover his imagined infidelity) aren’t particularly funny, even when he’s mistaken for the drunken porter and repeatedly booted up the backside. 



Tom Hollander executes rapid costume changes to plays both parts with brio, Freddie Fox impresses as a nephew with a speech defect, and John Marquez’s foot-stamping Spaniard finally won me over in a stolid production that hasn’t yet maximised the slapstick potential of slamming doors and a revolving bed.

Old Vic, The Cut , SE1 8NB Waterloo tube (0844 871 7628) oldvictheatre.com Till March 5 £10 - £48.50

Season’s Greetings **** TNT


It’s Christmas Eve and the host is tinkering in the toolshed, his wife’s feeling neglected, his neurotic sister’s wrecking the food, and their ex-security guard uncle (a knife strapped to his calf) is glued to the same TV programme he watched last year - and the year before that.



Even without the addition of an incompetent brother-in-law rehearsing an interminable puppet show (and a miserable couple expecting yet another baby) it’s a recipe for disaster, stirred up by too much booze and the arrival of a novelist with whom his spinster sister-in-law has fallen in unreciprocated love.



Alan Ayckbourn’s 1980 comedy is as bleak as it is funny, and a strong cast (including Mark Gatiss, David Troughton and Catherine Tate) makes you glad the festive season is over for another year.

Lyttelton at the National Theatre, South Bank, SE1 9PX Waterloo tube (020 7452 3000) nationaltheatre.org.uk Booking until March 13 (£10 - £44.00)

Barbershopera - Apocalypse No! *** TNT

It’s time for the bimillenial audit of the human race and the world’s in a mess.

So god sends the Horsemen of the Apocalypse to earth to sort it out before tomorrow tea time in Barbershopera’s playfully enjoyable new show.

But things don’t go quite according to plan – the hearts of War, Famine and Pestilence just aren’t really in it. And Death doesn’t even turn up – he’s dead.

So the three of them join forces with primary teacher Beth (whose school is threatened with closure) and set off on their hobby horses to put things right.

It’s all quite daft, but performed (in grey school uniforms) with an infectious enthusiasm and considerable talent.The a cappella singing embraces soul and gospel, the lyrics are (for the most part) witty and the four performers (Lara Stubbs and Pete Sorel-Cameron joining forces with lyricist composers Rob Castell and Tom Sadler) ensure that their encounters with (among others) a hairy nun, a pink cow, and the Hound of Hell in his filthy lair maintain momentum throughout the 80 minute running time.

Trafalgar Studios (2), Whitehall, SW1A 2DY Charing Cross tube (0844 871 7632) ambassadortickets.com/trafalgarstudios Till February 5 £20 (or £30 combined ticket with The Fitzrovia Radio Hour)

The Fitzrovia Radio Hour ** TNT

Sending up the behind the scenes workings of a 40’s radio show is a potentially fun idea which runs mercilessly out of steam in this Edinburgh festival hit.

One gets the picture pretty early on as, scripts in hand, the performers – their accents clipped, the women in tight pencil skirts, the men immaculate in bow ties and dinner jackets - create the parts and all the sound effects for not one, but three, pastiche melodramas, punctuated by ads, concerning a mummified undead queen looking for a new body to inhabit, Germans and Gay Hussars in India, and an ambitious man from Leeds who doesn’t know his place.

The rhythmic clack of coconut shells to simulate horses’ hooves, the crunch of cornflakes as an ancient body crumbles, and the various watery effects achieved with a watering can and a straw soon lose their fascination. Even the thwacking of a cabbage and squashing of a water melon (initially employed when a horse is decapitated) are repeated far too often.

At 30 minutes, this might have proved an enjoyable diversion, but, running far longer than the promised hour, this tedious show long outstays its welcome and had me longing for home and Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime.

Trafalgar Studios (2), Whitehall, SW1A 2DY Charing Cross tube (0844 871 7632) ambassadortickets.com/trafalgarstudios Till February 5 £20 (or £30 combined ticket with Barbershopera)

Season’s Greetings **** TNT


It’s Christmas Eve and the host is tinkering in the toolshed, his wife’s feeling neglected, his neurotic sister’s wrecking the food, and their ex-security guard uncle (a knife strapped to his calf) is glued to the same TV programme he watched last year - and the year before that.



Even without the addition of an incompetent brother-in-law rehearsing an interminable puppet show (and a miserable couple expecting yet another baby) it’s a recipe for disaster, stirred up by too much booze and the arrival of a novelist with whom his spinster sister-in-law has fallen in unreciprocated love.



Alan Ayckbourn’s 1980 comedy is as bleak as it is funny, and a strong cast (including Mark Gatiss, David Troughton and Catherine Tate) makes you glad the festive season is over for another year.

Lyttelton at the National Theatre, South Bank, SE1 9PX Waterloo tube (020 7452 3000) nationaltheatre.org.uk Booking until March 13 £10 - £44.00

Totem **** TNT

Two of Canada’s favourite exports join forces in the latest circus extravaganza to hit London – Cirque du Soleil and director Robert Lepage 
(who can create a sense of wonder and magic even in a one man show). Here, 
he has the resources of the international business that Cirque has become to
play with and although there is, perhaps, nothing ground-breaking as far as 
the circus element is concerned, the whole show is sumptuously beautiful to 
look at.


As usual with this company, the pretence of a story drifts away fairly
 rapidly, though two themes – evolution and Red Indians (the link isn't 
clear) – regularly emerge without being meaningfully developed.
 But for sheer spectacle, the production is hard to beat.

The costumes are
 gorgeous and the artists fiercely talented. A human glitterball (over 4,000
 reflective fragments pieces adorn Crystal Man’s leotard) descends from the 
roof and uncurls like a tadpole high above the stage. Performers clad in the 
dangerously vivid costumes of poisonous frogs perch on a huge, turtle-like 
skeleton and others in realistic monkey costumes observe – and participate - 
in the acrobatic action.


The muscly Rings Trio in skimpy, neon-bright bathing gear swing out 
alarmingly over the auditorium; a quintet of tiny Chinese girls executes a
perfectly synchronised display on unicycles, flipping bowls from foot to
 head as they balance; the Crystal Ladies twirl sparkling cloths on upturned
 feet and hands; a roller skating duo swirl perilously on a drum-shaped 
platform less than two metres in diameter and a Darwinesque scientist 
juggles balls of light inside a huge cone – all accompanied by live music.


But the highlights of the show are a cheeky routine on the fixed trapeze
 (the limbs of the two performers increasingly entwined till it’s impossible 
to tell where one ends and the other begins), a gravity-defying sequence on 
the Russian Bars which, balanced on strong shoulders, send the lighter
 members of the troupe flying seemingly weightlessly into the air, and (and
 here the influence of Lepage really shows) the stunning projections which
 seem to flood the stage with rippling water, a shark-infested sea or a 
stream of molten lava.


Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, SW7 2AP South Kensington tube (0845 401 5045)www.royalalberthall.com www.cirquedusoleil.com Until February 17 (
£18 - £90)

The Potting Shed *** TNT

Grahame Greene is far better known for his novels than his plays – and Cliff Richard is far more famous for his singing than his acting, but, way back in 1971, the ever youthful pop star took on the challenging central role of 
James Callifer in a revival of the novelist’s 1958 drama about family 
secrets and divine intervention.

I can’t comment on Sir Cliff’s performance,
but, on the evidence of the current workmanlike production, Greene’s
 explorations of Catholicism are more suited to the page than the stage.


For thirty years, Mrs Callifer and her strongly atheist husband (who lies, 
unseen, on his deathbed when the play begins) have treated their son James 
like an outsider. Even as a schoolboy, his mother had little time for him 
and now, in middle age, he’s a damaged human being, divorced from his wife,
 ostracised by the family, living alone in a tiny flat and undergoing therapy 
in an attempt to uncover the root of his problems.


Summoned back by his young niece (in direct defiance of her grandmother’s 
wishes) he tries, once again to find out exactly what happened in the
 potting shed so many years ago to make him an outcast.


Greene takes far too long to get to the heart of the matter. Only in the 
pivotal scene between James and Martin Wimbush’s Uncle William (another 
black sheep of the unbelieving family who became a Catholic priest but lost 
his faith and turned to drink) is there any real tension and this
 questioning drama of challenged beliefs finally shows its psychological 
power. 



Finborough, Finborough Road, SW10 9ED Earl’s Court tube (0844 847 1652) www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk Until January 29 (£9 - £15)

Love Story **** TNT

Based on Erich Segal’s 1970 novel which inspired the famous film, this beautifully played romance between Harvard preppy Oliver Barrett IV (who stands to inherit a fortune) and poor Italian-American scholarship student
 Jenny (whose widowed dad, warmly played by Peter Polycarpou, runs a restaurant) has its twee moments and occasionally trite lyrics.

But there’s real heart to this musical with its “money can’t buy happiness” message and tear-jerker ending.

Howard Goodall’s affecting score (performed by a discreet on-stage ensemble) is often poignant – the play opens with a funeral - but there’s lightness, too, in the deliciously catchy pasta song which marks the passing months.

And Emma Williams (feisty, sharp-tongued) and Michael Xavier (bowled over hockey jock and lawyer in the making) keep their love tunefully, touchingly alive. Take a tissue.

Duchess Theatre, Catherine Street, WC2B 5LA
 
 Charing Cross tube
 (0844 412 4659) www.lovestoryonstage.com Until 30th April (£25 - £55)

Matthew Bourne's Cinderella **** TNT

She still has a couple of stepsisters and a none too kindly stepmother, but this Cinderella also has a trio of stepbrothers (one has a foot fetish, another is gay, the third isn’t yet old enough to know what’ll turn him on when he grows up) plus a silver-suited Angel with a motorbike instead of the conventional Fairy Godmother.

For his New Adventures dance company, Matthew Bourne has almost completely reinvented this staple of ballet and panto, moving the setting to London in the Blitz and turning the usual Prince into an injured RAF pilot. Frumpy, dumpy Cinderella, myopic and mouse-like in her grey woollen outfit, is still the household underdog, but her father is a war veteran confined to a wheelchair whilst his second wife vamps it up in Joan Crawford style.

This is, in fact, a significant reworking of Bourne’s own 1997 ballet which followed his ground-breaking all male Swan Lake. The wail of sirens punctuates the surround sound swirl of Prokofiev’s music (which, fittingly, was composed during the war) as Cinderella imagines she’s been whisked off to the Café de Paris on the night it was bombed. Lez Brotherston’s evocative designs create a ghostly echo of war-torn London – from glamorous ballroom with the life ripped out if it to the Thames embankment in the early hours.

With its Brief Encounter style station farewells (cinematic references abound), urgent anonymous couplings with rent boys and prostitutes in the shelter of the Underground and even a session of electroconvulsive therapy, this isn’t a show for young children. But, like all the best fairytales, there’s a happy ending – tinged with wartime sadness, perhaps, but even in this drastic reinterpretation, Cinderella is, if only briefly, the sparkling belle of the ball.

Sadler’s Wells, Rosebery Avenue, EC1R 4TN (0844 412 4300) www.sadlerswells.com Until 23rd January £10 - £50

Decline and Fall *** TNT

Evelyn Waugh was in his mid twenties when his first novel, Decline and Fall, was published to considerable acclaim in 1928. Like the central character, Paul Pennyfeather, he’d already been dismissed from an educational establishment (from school because of a homosexual relationship in Waugh’s case, from Oxford for being drunk and trouserless in Pennyfeather’s), had briefly taken up a teaching post in Wales and had developed a taste for high society.

Adaptor Henry Filloux-Bennett has done a reasonable job, cutting some of the characters and drawing on Waugh’s letters and diaries to highlight the autobiographical elements of this comic social satire packed with far-fetched coincidences.

The nifty staging wittily pulls props out of classroom desks, but, as it chronicles Pennyfeather’s unwitting descent from undergrad to jailbird, some rather forced performances often feel too emphatic for such a tiny space.

Michael Lindall makes an intentionally bland Pennyfeather, a weak young man (with no apparent will of his own) to whom things just seem to happen; Fay Downie vamps it up as wealthy, devious Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde with her string of South American brothels, and (as the potentially bigamous, boozy Captain Grimes) former Dr Who Sylvester McCoy dons a blatantly fake beard - which is every bit as unsubtle as this intermittently entertaining but somewhat heavy-handed production.

Old Red Lion, 418 St John Street, EC1V 4NJ (020 7837 7816) Tube: Angel oldredliontheatre.co.uk Until 29 January £16 (Thursdays – pay what you can)