Sleeping Beauty

 TNT

To celebrate the Silver Jubilee of his dance company New Adventures, Matthew Bourne has finally transformed the last of Tchaikovsky’s three full length ballet works.  First there was Nutcracker! in 1992, followed by his ground-breaking all-male Swan Lake three years later.
His new Sleeping Beauty is an inventively gothic affair – beginning in 1890 (the year of the original choreographed by Petipa) and ending in the present day. His long-term collaborator Lez Brotherston provides stunning designs, creating an opulent, gilt, late-Victorian nursery, a verdant Edwardian garden, a misty sleepwalkers’ forest, and a steamy crimson and black nightclub behind locked gates where vengeful Caradoc, son of the dark fairy Carabosse, prepares to sacrifice the somnolent Princess Aurora after her hundred years’ sleep.
Bourne’s Aurora is a defiantly mischievous being, making her deliciously cute entrance as an infant- size puppet, crawling on all fours, climbing the curtains and taxing the patience of the royal parents who so wished for a child that they called on Carabosse’s services to obtain her. No wonder, then, that when she comes of age, she falls for gamekeeper Leo rather than one of her more eligible suitors. And, ever the storyteller, Bourne introduces a bloodsucking vampire to ensure Leo is still there to save her a century after she pricks her finger on a rose.
The music is pared and pre-recorded which may bug purists, but, with its nods to different dance styles and cheeky inventions, Bourne’s ballet proves a treat, with Hannah Vassallo’s Princess limp as a ragdoll in response to Caradoc’s unwanted kiss, spirited as the visiting night-time fairies who entertained her as a toddler when she dances with her beloved Leo.

Sadler’s Wells, Rosebery Avenue EC1R 4TN
Tube:- Angel
Until 26th January
£12- £60sadlerswells.com

In the Republic of Happiness

 TNT

If you’re looking for seasonal fun, this definitely isn’t the show for you - even though it opens with a family tucking into the traditional Christmas turkey. Split into three segments, and exceptionally well-acted by all concerned, Martin Crimp’s new play doesn’t find much to recommend either getting together with one’s nearest and dearest or the self-obsessed nature of life today.

“Destruction of the Family” begins conventionally enough (we could almost be in Ayckbourn territory) but breaks into a very unseasonal song delivered by the two teenage daughters - one pregnant, the other (in-yer-face Ellie Kendrick) envious of the special treatment - and presents - her sibling’s condition affords her.

Meanwhile Dad (Stuart McQuarrie) has removed all the lightbulbs to save electricity, Granny (Anna Calder-Marshall’s retired doctor) happily discusses going out to buy porn for Peter Wight’s Grandad, and Emma Fielding’s tight-lipped Mum tries to keep things under control - only to be further thwarted by the arrival of her almost certainly deviant brother, Uncle Bob, delivering messages of vitriol on behalf of his own wife Madeleine.

“The Five Essential Freedoms of the Individual” involves a swift switch to a brightly lit cross between a therapy session and a confessional television programme in which the unassigned lines of dialogue launch a scattergun attack on modern preoccupations - from “moving on” to, ironically, the concept of being different and writing one’s own life script.

Finally, it’s just Paul Ready’s now needy Uncle Bob, an empty vista visible through the window of their almost empty room, unhappily singing their “100% happy song” with frequent prompts from Michelle Terry’s cool, glammed up Madeleine.

Guaranteed to alienate some with its unconventional approach, Dominic Cooke’s production proves intriguing, amusing and irritating by turns. It doesn’t exactly add up to a coherent whole, but individual moments, first rate performances and Roald Van Oosten’s music help overcome most of the frustrations elicited by Crimp’s absurdist satire

Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, SW1W 8AS
Tube: Sloane Square
Until 19th January
£10 - £28royalcourttheatre.com

The Dance of Death

 TNT

There’s absolutely nothing festive about the second production in the Donmar’s season showcasing the work of its Resident Assistant Directors. But with a sparklingly bitchy new version by Conor McPherson, Ibsen’s 1900 account of a marriage made in hell proves exceptionally entertaining.

Kevin R McNally and Indira Varma are on top form as the mismatched couple – ailing military captain Edgar who’s too fond of drink and his considerably younger wife. Alice, a former actress – who are approaching their silver wedding anniversary. Isolated by both the garrison’s island location and their scorn for those around them, their venomous verbal sparring has become their main means of entertainment. The unexpected arrival of her cousin, Kurt (the man who introduced them and now the newly appointed Quarantine Master) adds a new dimension to the poisonous mix and, Alice, sensing the possibility of escape, steps up the vitriol.

Titas Halder’s production zings along, yet beneath the mutual hatred, there’s the occasional telling glimpse of sympathies shared and the suggestion that – just like George and Martha in Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – a deep-seated dependence on their cruelly destructive animosity imprisons them as surely as the former jail which (in Richard Kent’s intentionally unwelcoming design) serves as their marital home.

Trafalgar Studios, Whitehall, SW1A 2DY
Tube: Charing Cross
Closes 5th January (£22)
donmarwarehouse.com

The Bodyguard

 TNT

American Heather Headley hits all the right notes in Alexander Dinelaris’s new stage version of Lawrence Kasdan’s 1992 film, which starred Kevin Costner and (as mega recording star Rachel Marron threatened by a dangerous stalker) the late Whitney Houston.

There’s not much tension generated in Thea Sharrock’s efficient if bitty production (blame the dialogue and scrappy plotting), and any poignancy in the thwarted love story is killed off by a final feel-good rendition of 'I Wanna Dance with Somebody' guaranteed to send you home happy.

But despite these shortcomings, the overall result proves surprisingly watchable – thanks in no small measure to the compensatory high production values, the Whitney back catalogue, and the warm stage presence (when diva Rachel thaws) of Headley.

There’s enough chemistry between her and Lloyd Owen’s gruff, solid bodyguard Frank Farmer to fuel their affair, and one feels for her sister Nicki (Debbie Kurup) losing out yet again to her stellar sibling.

And, even though it rings as true as the recent ludicrous developments in Homeland, in a nicely ironic touch the initial rendering of 'I Will Always Love You' takes place in a karaoke bar – a pretty dire move from the security point of view, but one which whets the appetite for Headley’s subsequent full throttle delivery in this attractively wrapped musical.

Adelphi, Strand, WC2R 0NS
Tube| Charing Cross
Currently booking till 27 April
£20-£67.50thebodyguardmusical.com

The Arabian Nights

 TNT

 

One story slips neatly into another, then another, in American Mary Zimmerman’s 20 year old version of a resourceful young girl’s clever ruse to save herself from death.

King Shahryar of Baghdad has married then murdered a succession of new spouses every day since his first faithless spouse deceived him. Now there are no more eligible young virgins left except Scheherezade and her sister – and the only way she can stay alive is to tell him a new story every night, ending on a cliff-hanger each time so that he feels compelled to stay her sentence and find out what happens next.

Lu Kemp’s physically fluent production relies on swift costume changes and the adept doubling of the multinational cast to tell the stories. The tales include, among others, a man whose flatulent excesses earn him an unwanted entry on the calendar, a fiancée who sacrifices her own happiness to help her betrothed obtain the woman of his dreams, and a wise young girl who wittily proves she knows more than all the scholarly elders.

Lights twinkle overhead, Take it Easy Hospital provides original musical and, although there’s an underlying political resonance, this selective adaptation of One Thousand and one Nights sets out primarily to entertain and, with charm, humour and a bit of darkness, succeeds in doing just.

Tricycle, Kilburn High Road, NW6 7JR
Tube | Kilburn
Until 12th January
£14.00 - £20.00tricycle.co.uk

Old Money

 TNT

Sarah Wooley’s new play, set in 2008, ticks lots of boxes but isn’t quite a full package. Although it begins with a funeral (and there’s another before the evening’s out), there’s some very funny dialogue in this account of recently widowed Joyce, finally set free from the constraints of a marriage reluctantly entered into forty five years previously.

Whilst her controlling mother (Helen Ryan’s opinionated Pearl) now expects her to make weekly visit to her dead husband’s grave, and her 42 year-old daughter Fiona takes it for granted that she’ll want to up her childcare commitment, Joyce has ideas of her own. First there’s the purchase of a defiantly red coat from Bond Street, then visits to the opera, but it isn’t long before she’s having tea at the Ritz with a young stripper as she throws off the family obligations threatening to hem her in all over again.

Although not all Joyce’s encounters ring true, much of what Wooley touches on will hit various nerves across the generations as Tracy-Ann Oberman’s materialistic, cash-strapped Fiona (married to a lazy out-of-work musician and expecting their unplanned third child) becomes increasingly less sympathetic with her frequent requests for financial help from the bank of mum.

And with Maureen Lipman giving a fine central performance as respectable, reliable, suburban Joyce, disconcertingly rejuvenated and turning into a latter day Merry Widow, Terry Johnson’s enjoyable production proves both entertaining and mildly provocative.

Hampstead, Eton Avenue, NW3 3EU
Tube | Swiss Cottage
Until 12th January
£22-£29
hampsteadtheatre.com

Boy Meets Boy

 TNT

The most unusual thing about this frothy off-Broadway musical love story is that although Bill Solly and Donald Ward wrote it in 1975, it treats the subject of gay marriage as a completely acceptable matter of course.

It’s 1936, the King is about to abdicate and cynical, debauched reporter Casey O’Brien is desperate for a scoop so that he can pay his bill at the swanky Savoy Hotel.

His sights are set on tracking down English aristocrat Guy Rose who’s just left wealthy American Clarence Cutler standing at the altar, little realising that the dowdy youth flaked out under his bed post-party is in fact the man in question. A quick makeover, a trip to Paris, some strategically placed fans at the Follies, a shared interest in the Scouts and, despite the machinations of Ben Kavanagh’s bitchy jilted Clarence, it all comes out happily at the end.

The tunes are amiable if forgettable, but Gene David Kirk’s production (the UK premiere) is fun while it lasts, with Craig Fletcher’s Guy neatly carrying off the transformations between desirable socialite and geek in order to convert commitment-phobe Casey to the joys of marital bliss, and choreographer Lee Proud miraculously packing five dancing couples onto the postage stamp stage in this light-hearted romance with a subversive twist.


Jermyn Street Theatre, SW1Y 6ST, £20
Tube | Piccadilly Circus
Until 20th Decemberjermynstreettheatre.co.uk

Goodnight Mister Tom

 TNT

Michelle Magorian’s 1981 children’s book makes an enjoyably successful transition to the stage in David Wood’s swift, compassionate adaptation which doesn’t shy away from the more upsetting elements of this ultimately uplifting war time tale.

Evacuated to rural Dorset at the outbreak of the Second World War, city boy William Beech finds himself billeted with reclusive widower Tom Oakley and his far more forthcoming collie Sammy (a life-size puppet endearingly manipulated by Elisa de Grey).

It isn’t long before the curmudgeonly old man’s heart begins to melt as he discovers the illiterate young boy’s unhappy background (along with a bible and the mandatory gasmask, all his mother has packed for him is a belt to whack him with). And reticent William blossoms, too, as he overcomes the local kids’ prejudice against the city interloper and makes friends with William Price’s scene stealing Zack, a precociously confident fellow evacuee with a very different upbringing.

It’s all rather charmingly done, with a succession of swift scenes which never linger too long on the darker aspects of the story. And Oliver Ford Davies (with his long white hair and thoughtful manner) is perfectly cast as Tom, the four decades of loneliness since the death of his wife in childbirth melting away as his caring instincts are reawakened by the initially unwanted presence of Ewan Harris’s William (one of three young actors sharing the role) in this more serious seasonal alternative to the traditional panto.

 Phoenix, Charing Cross Road, WC2H 0JP
Tube: Leicester Square /Tottenham Court Road
Until 26 January, £15 - £46.50goodnightmistertom.co.uk

Merrily We Roll Along

  TNT

 

It’s hard to believe that Stephen Sondheim’s heart-breaking and witty musical flopped on Broadway, folding after just 16 performances and a load of previews in 1981.

Since then, it’s been tweaked and polished and, with its clever lyrics and songs that linger in the memory, this wry look at how life turns out is an almost unqualified success.

Based on Kaufman and Hart’s 1934 play, it zooms in, more or less backwards from 1976, on key moments in the fraught friendship between big shot Hollywood composer and producer Franklin Shepard, Charley (his one-time lyricist) and Mary (novelist turned waspish critic), tracing the relationship all the way back to their first chance meeting in 1957.

Chasing the mega bucks has brought Franklin success and a glamorous entourage, but what he’s lost in the process is tellingly revealed as the threesome’s youthful optimism is replaced by mid-life cynicism, disillusionment and abandoned values.

Maria Friedman, making her directorial debut, is herself a long term interpreter of Sondheim’s work and ensures that her fine cast are alert to all the bittersweet sadness, the hope and the humour of the score.

Mark Umbers’ Franklin is persuasively attractive as he’s lured away from his wife and ideals by glamorous actress Gussie, whilst Damian Humbley’s uncompromising, angry Charley remains true to his principles and his sweetheart.

And Jenna Russell’s Mary, her long-lasting love for Franklin obvious to everyone but the man himself, drowns her lonely disappointment in bitterness and too much booze as the years go by.

Menier Chocolate Factory , 53 Southwark Street, SE1 1RU
Tube | London Bridge
Until 9 March
£29.50 – 37.50 (Meal Deals £37.50 - £43.00)menierchocolatefactory.com

The Changeling

 TNT

 

It’s trifle and chocolate in the bedroom and death by punchbowl and banana in Joe Hill-Gibbins’ unrestrained modern dress revival of Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s 1622 tragedy.

Seen earlier this year in the Young Vic’s smaller space and now substantially recast, it’s a messy play in several respects with the two parallel plots unsatisfactorily integrated, a problem which Hill-Gibbins minimises by blurring the differences between the sane and the supposedly mad.

In the main thread, Beatrice-Joanna, daughter of the Governor of Alicante, is already betrothed to another when she falls for Harry Hadden-Paton’s upright Naval Captain Alsemero. For a well brought up religious young girl, she chooses a rather drastic way to avoid an unwanted marriage – persuading her father’s detested manservant De Flores to get rid of her fiancé in exchange, she believes, for a substantial fee, little realising the real price the besotted valet will demand in return.

In the rather feeble sub-plot, jealous madhouse doctor Alibius and his nubile wife become comic strip caricatures - he’s a dead ringer for Alan Bennett, she’s a provocative brunette with Jessica Rabbit curves, locked up to keep her away from other men.

Watched through a mesh, with characters popping out of cupboards, the proceedings get progressively out of control, with Sinead Matthews’ Joanna caught up in a tragedy of her own making and Zubin Varla’s menacing De Flores, his skin raw and red with erupting pustules, deflowering her in the midst of the increasingly manic wedding celebrations.

Young Vic, The Cut, SE1 8LZ
Tube | Southwark / Waterloo
Until 22nd December
£10.00 - £30.00youngvic.org

Straight

  TNT

 

I hadn’t heard of Lynn Shelton’s 2009 movie “Humpday,” so can’t tell where most of the credit for the spot-on killer dialogue lies, but if the original is anywhere near as funny as DC Moore’s stage version it’s definitely worth viewing.

Straight takes the exploration of male bonding to a new comic level when the cosily contented (if financially straitened) lifestyle of happily married Lewis and Morgan is disturbed by the unconventional arrival (you’ll never forget it!) of his best buddy from university. Off the radar for seven years whilst he’s been travelling the world, rootless Waldorf makes their plans for parenthood and a functioning air extractor seem suddenly unsatisfyingly limiting to Lewis, and neither man is ready to back down from a late night drunken dare involving sex, a camcorder and lots of lube.

Admittedly I didn’t completely buy into the pact which gets them booked into a wallet-bustingly expensive country hotel. That apart, though, Richard Wilson’s production is flawless and it’s a long time since I’ve laughed so much at the theatre.

But I was also touched by the potential for hurt as Jessica Ransom’s Morgan pushes at the boundaries of understanding to keep her marriage safe, and (finally stripped to their underpants) Henry Pettigrew’s hesitant Lewis and Philip McGinley’s bearded, free-spirited Waldorf awkwardly negotiate overlapping territories of art, pornography and male friendship to perfection.

Bush Theatre, Uxbridge Road, W12 8LJ
Tube | Shepherds Bush
Until 22nd December
£15 - £19.50bushtheatre.co.uk

A Clockwork Orange

 TNT

Nothing can quite compete with the powerful image of Malcolm McDowell’s black–fringed eyes held forcibly open as he undergoes aversion therapy in Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film version of Anthony Burgess’s futuristic 1962 novella.

But Alexandra Spencer-Jones visceral all-male production for Action to the Words (using Burgess’s own later stage adaptation) exudes a sweaty atavistic menace as teenage Alex and his gang of Droogs indulge their adolescent sprees of senseless, testosterone-fuelled violence.

Bottles are smashed into weapons of sexual assault, chains are wielded, fists and boots terrorise old and young, male and female – until Alex, convicted and imprisoned, becomes a guinea-pig for a new treatment designed to knock the aggressive instinct out of him once and for all - and save the state some money in the process.

Shafts of orange pierce the monochrome design (a carrot-coloured pen peeks from a lab coat, a victim sports a tangerine cardigan) and the well-muscled cast of nine execute their acts of violence with balletic, sometimes homo-erotic precision, speaking in their own unique “Nadsat” slang as they gather in the local milk bar or terrorise an old lady.

Led by Martin McCreadie’s swaggering, charismatic, Beethoven-loving Alex, they deliver a short, powerful sensory attack which questions whether forcing someone to be good – whatever the rationale - is in itself an unacceptable violation.

Soho Theatre, Dean Street, W1D 3NE
Tube Tottenham Court Road
Until 5th Jan
£15.00- £22.50sohotheatre.com