Roots

Roots - This is London

This, the second standalone play in Arnold Wesker’s 1958 Trilogy, (it was preceded by Chicken Soup With Barley and followed by I’m Talking About Jerusalem) proves something of a slow burner, leavened by Linda Bassett’s faultless comic timing as Mrs Bryant. But James MacDonald’s measured production is well worth sticking with for the emotional power of the inevitable third act denouement.

This truly kitchen sink drama (two of them feature large in Hildegard’s Bechtler’s realistic design) depicts a post-war world in which opportunities, especially for women, are changing. For twenty-two year old Beatie, living in London with her socialist boyfriend Ronnie has opened intellectual and cultural doors. Now she’s back visiting her farm-labourer family in rural Norfolk, talking enthusiastically about ‘love in the afternoon’ to her more traditional older sister and quoting Ronnie’s views with an unquestioning enthusiasm. She’s all too aware that life can offer more than the repetitive drudgery of home and housework, yet she’s torn between the comfort of conventional family life and the wider opportunities which she realises she’s ill-equipped to fully understand.

Jessica Raine’s Beatie is passionate, chirpy, confused, determined as she tries to find her own voice and, as a tin bath is filled, potatoes peeled and a sponge cake mixed, a fine supporting cast ensure that this atmospheric revival – with its pinafores for the women and caps for the men – shows just how full of regrets her life will be if she doesn’t break away.

Donmar

The Same Deep Water As Me

Although it lacks the distinctive style and empathy which made his award-winning Constellations so memorable, Nick Payne’s more conventional, often very funny follow-up to his highly praised two-hander proves enjoyably entertaining.

Set predominantly in the shabby Luton offices of Scorpion Claims (a two man legal firm which specialises in personal injury cases) it’s torn between being more than a touch sympathetic to the financially straitened who succumb to the temptation of pursuing false claims and despising the clients who manufacture them.

It doesn’t take much for Daniel Mays’ slightly shifty solicitor Andrew to be persuaded to pursue – on a ‘no-win, no-fee’ basis – a faked case presented to him by Marc Wootton’s working class Kevin (a loud, loutish old school buddy who thinks shorts are appropriate courtroom attire). But Kevin has a bigger plan to scam and Andrew, already under a career cloud, goes right along with it, whilst assuring his senior partner Barry (Nigel Lindsay excellent as a fundamentally decent man who’s had some hard – and insufficiently explored – knocks) that everything is kosher.

The dialogue is sharp, the performances first-rate – Peter Forbes’ Judge presides over his court with a wry tolerance, Monica Dolan doubles as a sleekly composed corporate lawyer and a dodgy accomplice, and Isabella Laughland impresses as the overworked supermarket delivery driver who freely admits to pranging someone’s car but not to racism.

The final scenes are less satisfactory, but John Crowley’s smooth direction almost manages to hide their weaknesses in this critique of today’s crash-for-cash compensation culture.

(This is London)

Bonnie and Clyde

 TNT

Put together by the same team who added songs to their stage version of The Great Gatsby last year, Linnie Reedman (writer and director) and Joe Evans’ (composer and lyricist) musical for Ruby in the Dust adds little to the drama of the shooting and looting of the infamous 1930’s outlaws.

Maybe that’s partly because the only casualties we see are the members of their gang who got variously burned and blasted rather than any of their victims who included a trail of dead law enforcement officers left in their wake as they shot their way across America during the Great Depression.

Some attempt has been made to get inside the heads of the main protagonists - Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, his jailbird older brother Buck and his wife Blanche, plus the youngest hot-headed recruit WD Jones. But learning that former waitress Bonnie always wanted to be famous, bashed out poetry on her typewriter and bought her mother a bunny rabbit doesn’t go far enough to compensate for the lack of chemistry between her and Clyde, or of any real sense of their life on the road.

The musical numbers are okay, though rarely memorable, but the projected images of the final shoot out show just how determined the cops were to eliminate these enemies of the public who were still only in their mid-twenties when a barrage of bullets put an end to their indiscriminate exploits. 

Kings Head Theatre, Upper Street, N1 1QN
Tube: Angel
till 21st September
(£10.00- £25.00)kingsheadtheatre.com

Blue Stockings

 TNT

Director turned first time playwright Jessica Swale’s new play sits remarkably well in the friendly outdoor atmosphere of the Globe theatre as it follows the fortunes of four female students at Girton College Cambridge in 1897.

 Although permitted (albeit against strong opposition) to attend lectures, women were not actually allowed to graduate at that time, and it took considerable determination (and a first class brain)  for these exceptional women to overcome resistance and complete the demanding courses even without the reward of a degree at the end.

Swale has obviously done her research, mixing historical figures such as the pioneering  psychiatrist Henry Maudsley (Edward Peel)  - who maintained that intellectual pursuits would not only damage women’s health but also  “incapacitate them for the adequate performance of the natural functions of their sex”  - with her fictional quartet as they fight against the odds to combine romance (if they were lucky) and family commitments with intensive study, whilst  Miss Welsh, the college principal, battles for their right to graduate alongside the men.

It all makes for an engaging and informative evening, with Ellie Piercy’s spirited Tess (a promising astrophysics student who falls for a Trinity undergraduate), Tala Gouveia’s sparky, privileged Carolyn, and Fergal McElherron’s sympathetic male lecturer who stands up for their right to learn particularly impressive in a timely debut play which makes one thankful that if women can’t have it all, they are, in most countries at least, no longer forced to choose between love and education.
                           
Shakespeare’s Globe, New Globe Walk, Bankside, SE1 9DT
Tube | Blackfriars/ Mansion House/ London Bridge
Until 11th October
£5.00(Standing) £15.00  - £39.00shakespearesglobe.com

Dirty Dancing

 TNT

I loved this show when it first opened in the West End in 2006 - so much so that, despite its shortcomings, I could happily have sat through it all over again the moment it finished.

But this recast revival is sadly lacking in the vital ingredient which, in the 1987 film too, turned Eleanor Bergstein’s mediocre script and storyline into a huge hit – sex appeal.

Sorry to be cruel but, although he can dance, Paul-Michael Jones’ blue-collar dance instructor Johnny Castle  can’t even begin to compete with the late Patrick Swayze in the movie (okay, I know that would be  a tough call, but still) or his predecessor on stage  - and it really, really matters.

So although all the set numbers of this rites of passage musical are nicely recreated – the lift (practised in a projected river), Baby rescued from the corner - the chemistry just isn’t there.

Jill Winternitz makes a likeable, pretty (rather too pretty) doctor’s daughter Baby, falling for Johnny’s mambo moves despite her serious outlook. But it’s left to Charlotte Gooch’s knocked-up Penny, with her high kicks and raunchy dancing, to remind you just why, in previous incarnations,  this '60s holiday romance, though not perhaps, “The Time of My Life,” proved such a great night out.

£26.50+. Piccadilly Theatre,
Denman Street, W1D 7DY
Tube | Piccadilly
dirtydancingLondon.com

Thark

 TNT

Farce seems to be a bit like marmite: it either tickles your funny bone or it doesn't. And, I'm afraid, it really isn't my favourite genre.

I'd love to be able to report that Clive Francis' adaptation of Ben Travers' 1927 comedy (which was the fourth in a series of a dozen so-called Aldwych farces produced between 1923 and 1933) managed to win me over. But despite a couple of spot on performances, Eleanor Rhode's somewhat laboured production comes across as an example of a heavy-handed formula that really has had its day.

Francis himself has a nice lightness of touch as randy old goat Sir Hector Benbow whose roving eye threatens to get him into trouble when his wife returns earlier than expected and finds him entertaining the South Molton Street shop girl he's invited to dinner. And James Dutton is perfectly at home as well-meaning, silly-ass Ronny, who's engaged to his far more sensible ward but finds himself sharing a double bed with Hector when they all decamp to the apparently haunted house which gives the venture its name.

Andrew Jarvis's creepy butler Death keeps a very straight face when called upon to emit an inventive repertoire of peculiar noises and this revival does have its amusing moments. But the plot really creaks, the ending is perfunctory and the design barely distinguishes between town and country.

Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace,
Finsbury Park, N4 3JP
Tube | Finsbury Park
Until 22nd September, £19.50 parktheatre.co.uk 

Groove on Down the Road - ZooNation

 TNT

Kate Prince’s latest venture for ZooNation harnesses the unstoppable energy of a talented batch of kids and teenagers – all under twenty – in her exuberant 75 minute rethink of The Wizard of Oz.

They positively light up the stage from the moment young Dorothy (a determined Arizona Snow at the performance I saw)  is  released from the framework of a dull schoolroom where creativity is stifled and only academic achievement is rewarded with praise.

As she puts on her glittering red trainers and with dog Toto (endearingly dynamic Michael McNeish) follows her dreams down the yellow brick road to Emerald City High, the class dunce becomes Scarecrow (superbly controlled, gravity defying Jaih Betote Dipito Akwa), the tough guy with attitude morphs into Tinman (Michael Ureta) and the grade A student becomes a cowardly Lion (Corey Culverwell) who hides in the dustbin.

Kids and audience of all ages lapped it up – delighted when Dorothy leads her newfound friends round and through the auditorium, dancing all the way to the music of Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Justin Timberlake and more. With its back flips, spins and exuberant choreography – not to mention Steven Pascua’s Wizard with attitude – this hip-hop musical is enormous fun, and a terrific showcase for the next generation of upcoming dancers all of whom deserve a mention.
A real treat.

Queen Elizabeth Hall
South Bank Centre,  Belvedere Road , SE1 8XX
Until 1st September
Tickets £10-£32
southbankcentre.co.uk

The Pride

 TNT

After a limited run in 2008, Alexi Kaye Campbell’s award-winning debut play finally makes it to the West End, completely recast but skilfully directed once again by Jamie Lloyd as part of his Trafalgar Transformed season.

It initially played in the small space of the Royal Court Upstairs, and Lloyd has wisely kept the intimate feel, restricting the playing area to a raised platform backed by a tarnished mirror.

What initially appears to be a stylish 50’s drawing room drama (think Terence Rattigan) soon develops into something far more ambitious and thought-provoking as it switches seamlessly between the past and the present day, with different versions of an Oliver, a Sylvia and a Philip appearing both in 1958 and fifty years later.

Things have changed significantly even in the last 5 years, but it’s devastating to see estate agent Philip (a deeply troubled Harry Hadden-Paton)  and his lonely book illustrator wife Sylvia (Hayley Atwell)  emotionally destroyed by his desperation to quell the irrepressible homosexual tendencies aroused when she introduces him to her colleague, gentle children’s author Oliver (Al Weaver).

Five decades down the track, and sexual freedom comes with its own consequences – promiscuous, gay, freelance journalist Oliver’s addiction to anonymous encounters has ruined his relationship with Philip, the man he loves. And best friend and confidante, actress Sylvia, is there to pick up the pieces whilst pursuing a busy sex life of her own.

Mathew Horne contributes a trio of memorable cameos  (from a pissed-off rent boy to a psychiatrist offering aversion therapy via a lad’s mad editor) and, as a reminder that homophobia is far from eradicated in 2013, the excellent cast take the curtain call bearing placards with the words “To Russia, With Love”   writ large.

Trafalgar Studios
Whitehall, SW1A 2DY
Tube | Charing Cross£24.50 - £54.5
thepridewestend.com

West Side Story

 TNT

It’s over half a century since the Broadway premiere of Arthur Laurents’ blue-collar reworking of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s tragic tale of doomed love, but the finger-clicking opening of this sexy, dangerous musical still generates an air of tension and excitement as rival gangs, the Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks, clash over their patch in New York’s Upper West Side.

Stephen Sondheim’s clever lyrics aren’t always clear, which is a shame, and not all the singing voices match the vibrancy of the dancing.

But even fifty years down the track, Jerome Robbins’ recreated choreography is still exhilaratingly edgy and, as the star-crossed  lovers, Liam Tobin (a clear, resonant and vocally assured if rather too static, clean-cut Tony) and Elena Sancho-Pereg’s operatic, love-struck Maria sing beautifully, doing full justice to Leonard Bernstein’s glorious score.

And who can resist such classic numbers as Maria, I Feel Pretty, Tonight and the optimistic Somewhere with its still resonant plea for a society in which differences in race and background are resolved without resorting to knives and violence?

Sadler’s Wells, Rosebery Avenue EC1R 4TN
Tube | Angel
Until September 22
£15- £65 (£75 premium seats)
sadlerswells.com

Pipe Dream

 TNT

It’s hard to imagine Rodgers and Hammerstein II, the duo behind “Carousel”, “Oklahoma!” and “The Sound of Music” being responsible for a flop.

But this is the first fully staged London production of their 1955 collaboration (based on John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and his short novel Sweet Thursday), which opened for what proved to be a limited Broadway run.

Director Sasha Regan employs a large cast of 17 in a tiny space to inhabit the brothel where homeless Suzy finds shelter, the makeshift lab where marine biologist Doc studies starfish and octopi, and the insalubrious Palace Flophouse where most of the rest of the male population of Cannery Row seem to doss down.

But the plot is basically boy meets unsuitable girl and Kieran Brown’s lonely Doc (who dances a rather charming duet with his silhouette) and Charlotte Scott’s insecure, superficially tough Suzy (who later takes up residence in a boiler accessed via a pipe) give sympathetic performances in the central roles.

It’s a welcome pleasure, too, to be able to make out every word of the lyrics even if they aren’t particularly inspiring. And the relevance of a song about Christmas cards is at best tenuous.

But there’s solid work from Virge Gilchrist’s whorehouse madam with a soft, matchmaking  heart, David Haydn’s layabout Mac and Nick Martland’s Hazel, a gentle giant who forgets the problem he’s trying to solve long before he’s worked out the answer.

 

Union Theatre, Union Street, SE1 0LX
Tube | Southwark
Until 31st August
£19.50
uniontheatre.biz

WAG! The Musical

 TNT

An extra fiver per ticket gets you a “large glass of house wine” and you’ll probably need it if you’re going to enjoy this flimsy musical, which has as much merit as the sort of inferior TV sitcom that would have you rapidly switching channels if you were watching at home.

Tim Flavin won an Olivier Award almost thirty years ago but is here reduced to flouncing around as the gay manager of an upmarket department store which is about to stage a launch with the help of a host of footballer’s spray-tanned wives and girlfriends.

Meanwhile, on the cosmetics counter, Daisy Wood-Davis’s Jenny really believes that footballer Charlie is going to leave his wife and whisk her away, and colleague Sharron’s abusive relationship blinds her to the devotion of cleaner Basement Pete with his singer-songwriter talents.

Among the “celebrity” guests are Alyssa Kyria’s Greek Ariadne whose comedy routine is barely integrated in the show, and a  tubby interloper called Blow-Jo  - not to mention a couple of real life WAGS who add a touch of glamour but not  a lot else.

A programme note states that writer Belvedere Pashun “re-energises his senses” camping in the Himalayas. On the evidence of this lacklustre show, another visit is long overdue.

 

Charing Cross Theatre
The Arches, Villiers Street, WC2N 6NL
Until 24th August, £12.50+ charingcrosstheatre.co.uk

The Sound of Music

  TNT

Don’t miss Rachel Kavanaugh’s delightful production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s popular 1959 musical, a Broadway success, subsequently filmed, which proved to be their final collaboration.

Even on a damp Monday night, the Open Air venue provided a perfect backdrop, framing the single high-walled set, surrounded by a moat to paddle in. It serves both as the abbey (where postulant Maria can’t quite subdue the lively nature which suggests she really isn’t suited to becoming a fully-fledged nun) and as the opulent Austrian villa of the widowed naval Captain von Trapp, where she becomes tutor to his seven strictly disciplined children.

Packed full of familiar favourites - right from Maria’s eponymous first number to the final reprise of Mother Abbess Helen Hobson’s 'Climb Ev’ry Mountain', and with a host of numbers in between to showcase the talents of the von Trapp brood – it’s an absolute joy marred only by the shadow of the fast-approaching Anschluss, the increasing threat of Nazi occupation.

Michael Xavier’s withdrawn, unbending von Trapp (towering head and shoulders above Charlotte Wakefield’s tiny, radiant Maria) melts with a new love, but remains politically steadfast as the stormtroopers make their presence felt, Michael Matus adds an extra touch of comedy as his freeloading impresario friend Max, and the children – led by Faye Brookes’ Liesl and (on the night I went) kept on the straight and narrow by Imogen Gurney’s perceptive twelve year old Brigitta – perform to perfection in this immensely pleasurable  evening.

Open Air Theatre
Inner Circle, Regents Park, NW1 4NR
Tube | Baker Street
£25+, Until 7th Septemberopenairtheatre.org

The Color Purple

 TNT

Poor Celie – she’s black, she’s poor, she’s a woman and – as she’s frequently reminded – she’s plain ugly too, which puts her right at the bottom of the pile in Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer prize winning novel. Set in 1930s rural Georgia, Walker's seminal novel has been joyfully adapted for the stage by Marsha Norman and was a hit on Broadway in 2005.

Of necessity, this musical version strips out several characters, and crucial revelations and events are often dealt with in a perfunctory manner. But its heart is definitely in the right place and it doesn’t ignore the distressing aspects of the book (and of Steven Spielberg’s subsequent film) – teenage Celie’s rape, her miserable “marriage” to the cruel, whip-wielding Mister (Christopher Colquhoun) who wishes he’d married another woman and treats her worse than a slave, the appalling treatment of her sassy, indomitable  daughter-in-law Sofia (Sophia Nomvete), and juke-joint singer Shug Avery’s reliance on her sex appeal to get her through.

The men are a pretty rotten lot – cruel, abusive or, at best, weak. No wonder Celie only finds sexual happiness, at least temporarily, with Shug.

And although John Doyle’s lively production (enacted on a stage almost bare bar rows of chairs suspended from the rear wall) has a feel-good atmosphere right from the start, filling the stage with the powerful voices of gossiping churchgoers, the tears are there too - the tissues were in evidence well before the end.

And among the talented all-black cast, tiny Cynthia Erivo stands out as Celie who, over three decades, movingly makes the transition from downtrodden victim to a self-sufficient woman who knows her own mind. Warmly recommended. 

 

Menier Chocolate Factory , 53 Southwark Street, SE1 1RU
Tube |  London Bridge
Until 14th September
£27.50 – 37.50 (Meal Deals £37.50- £43.00) menierchocolatefactory.com

A Season in the Congo

 TNT

Patrice Lumumba was the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo, but his government of the newly independent country lasted a mere 12 weeks in 1960 before he was deposed in a coup and subsequently executed just a few months later at the age of 35.

Film director Joe Wright’s richly staged production of Aimé Césaire’s 1966 drama (the second in a trilogy concerning decolonization) transforms the auditorium into a vibrant Leopoldville as it follows Lumumba’s career from travelling beer salesman in 1955 to his final moments when the United Nations failed to step in to save him.

The narrative is fragmentary and at times there’s almost too much going on with a host of different  styles in evidence – from an old  likembe player (Kabongo Tshisensa) whose sayings are amusingly interpreted for an English audience, to huge-headed puppets and to the big pink nose-shaped masks sported by the all black cast to portray the Belgian colonials,  and from the strummed guitar of Kaspy N’Dia to the vibrant movement choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui who morphs a pulsating dance into a bloodbath.

But it’s all held together by a charismatic central performance from Chiwetel Ejiofor, returning to the stage to imbue Lumumba with both the charisma necessary to carry a nation and the naivety which could not prevent the civil war which followed.

Young Vic, The Cut, SE1 8LZ
Tube | Southwark / Waterloo
Extended to 24th August
£10.00 - £32.50
youngvic.org

Private Lives

 TNT

Noel Coward’s frequently revived 1930 comedy of very bad marital manners comes up fresh and sparkling in Jonathan Kent’s finely tuned production, a transfer from Chichester sumptuously designed by Anthony Hayward.

Reputedly dashed off in a matter of days, it centres on a divorced couple Elyot and Amanda who, after five years apart, find themselves honeymooning in adjoining Deauville hotels suites with their new partners – a neatly symmetrical scenario which inevitably leads to old flames being rekindled.

Toby Stephens makes a suave, dashing Elyot, with a cruel and careless undertone already apparent in his interactions with his pretty young wife, Sibyl (Anna-Louise Plowman who just happens to be Mrs Stephens in real life). He’s well-matched by Anna Chancellor’s equally privileged, overtly confident Amanda who is all too aware that she isn’t quite as young as she once was. Even her outfits are chosen to complement the bohemian décor of the Paris love nest where they escape to renew both the passion and the violence of their past relationship.

But it’s obvious from the start that settling for a pale shadow of her former spouse in the shape of stuffy, decent, tweedy Victor (excellent Anthony Calf), would never have led to happiness. Better, in Coward’s view, for sparks to fly and Stephens and Chancellor ensure that they do just that in this witty account of a turbulent couple who can’t live with each other but can’t live without each other either.

Gielgud, Shaftesbury Avenue, W1D 6AR
Tube | Piccadilly Circus
Until 21st September
£10.00 - £53.50privateliveswestend.com

Daytona

TNT

Actor Oliver Cotton’s new three-hander, set in 1986, can’t quite decide what sort of play it is. And, more crucially, the device that reunites his characters after a thirty year separation doesn’t ring true.

What begins as a comedy - with septuagenarian Jewish New Yorkers Elli and almost retired accountant husband Joe  (The Simpsons' Harry Shearer)  practicing for a senior ballroom dancing competition the following day - turns into an exposure of long-buried secrets and a moral debate about how justice should be meted out to war criminals.

Despite those reservations, the performances - and the matrimonial bickering of a long-established relationship - hold the attention.

As Joe’s estranged brother Billy who suddenly appears on their Brooklyn doorstep in the middle of winter, sockless and wearing a mismatched Hawaiian shirt and heavy suit, John Bowe makes the best of an unconvincing character who has, on the spur of the moment, taken matters into his own hands whilst holidaying in Florida and now feels the need for fraternal backup.

And Maureen Lipman’s Elli, combining spot on comic timing and later emotional desolation, goes a long way to compensate for the overload of exposition and predictability with which Cotton burdens David Grindley’s production.

Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace,
Finsbury Park, N4 3JP
Tube | Finsbury Park
Until 18th August, £22.50parktheatre.co.uk

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

 TNT

From impoverished Charlie Bucket himself (Louis Suc on the night I went) to rapping, gum-chewing Violet Beauregarde and snooty spoilt brat Veruca Salt in her pink tutu, the kids in this lavish musical are great, oozing confidence and not at all phased by having to contend with whizzing computer graphics and striking special effects.

Unlike my companion, I came to director Sam Mendes’ production with virtually no knowledge of Roald Dahl’s 1964 children’s book (here adapted and updated for the stage by David Greig), but it still felt like a pretty slow start with too much time spent in the company of Charlie’s quartet of bed-ridden grandparents before he finally finds the winning wrapper which entitles him to a coveted trip to chocolate heaven.

Things really look up, though, when Douglas Hodge’s charismatic Willy Wonka makes his entrance, bringing a touch of danger to the eccentric chocolatier as, one by one, the kids get their comeuppance on their guided tour of the mysterious factory.

The hard-working Oompa-Loompas are cleverly realised by set designer Mark Thompson who’s done an impressive job creating the various rooms where hyperactive Mike Teavee, greedy Augustus Gloop and the rest meet their appropriate fates which involve evil nut-cracking squirrels, a flowing chocolate fountain, some extreme expanding and even more drastic shrinking.

You’re unlikely to come out humming the songs, and the lyrics aren’t always clear. But it makes for an entertaining confection, suitable for all the family and with a timely warning in this reality TV age that no one ever gets back to normal once they’ve been on television

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane Catherine, Street WC2B 5JF
Tube | Charing Cross/Covent Garden
Currently booking till 31st May 2014
Tickets £ 25 - £67.50 (+ premium seats)www.seetickets.com

The American Plan

 TNT

Summering in the Catskills has long been popular with Jewish New Yorkers - offering a chance to get away from the heat of the city, and, for the young, the possibility of romance.

In multi-award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg’s superficially gentle drama, the title refers not only to the all-in hotel rate offering almost non-stop meals, but also to a way of life aspired to in the 60s which wealthy widow Eva (a Jewish émigré who claims to have caught the last boat out of Hitler’s Germany) wants to secure for her emotionally fragile daughter Lili – so long as the man in question meets with her approval, and that’s proving to be a pretty tough call.

When Luke Allen-Gale’s attractive Nick emerges, dripping, onto the jetty, Lili thinks her knight in shining armour has finally arrived – but Eva seems all set to scare him off, too.

None of the characters proves completely truthful, which leaves scope for various twists and the younger members of the cast persuasively handle the changes in mood, with Emily Taaffe touchingly vulnerable as Lili and Mark Edel-Hunt’s forceful Gil making a late appearance to throw another unexpected spanner in the works.

But Diana Quick’s Eva seems oddly ponderous for such a manipulative woman and although David Grindley’s production garnered excellent reviews in Bath earlier this year, this 1990 American drama with its debt to Tennessee Williams seems to have lost something in the transfer.

 

St James, 21 Palace Street, SW1E 5JA
Tube: Victoria
Until 10th August £15 –£40
(£50.00 Premium seats) stjamestheatre.co.uk

Propeller's The Taming of the Shrew & Twelfth Night

 TNT

Edward Hall, currently the artistic director at this address, made his name with his all-male touring company Propeller. It’s still going strong under his command and is stopping off here briefly with revivals of a couple of Shakespeare’s comedies both of which have an underlying vein of darkness.

Most accessible – and, here, most brutal -  is their interpretation of The Taming of the Shrew – a no holds barred account of a man viciously determined to break the will of his chosen woman, Kate, and gain her fortune too. The fact that Kate is played by a man (Dan Wheeler stomping around angrily in Doc Martens and head to toe black) gives licence for far more extreme violence than is usual.

Vince Leigh’s swaggering Petruchio doesn’t just humiliate her by turning up bare-buttocked at their wedding, but, once married, tugs her by her white-blond hair and stamps on her hand.

Yes, it’s amusing to see Bianca (fetching in a peach polka dot dress) played as a rather calculating coquette instead of the usual sweetly insipid foil to her older sister (her tutor brings The Joy of Sex  to their lessons together). But seeing Kate broken and cowed into total submission still leaves a nasty taste even though the whole episode is presented as a drunken dream.

Their Twelfth Night is a much more restrained affair - though there are bare bums to be seen here, too.  Designer Michael Pavelka’s wardrobes with their tarnished mirrors are now shrouded and masked characters oversee the proceedings.

But having a man playing a woman who disguises herself as a youth yields insufficient dividends – there’s nothing feminine about Joseph Chance’s shipwrecked Viola and little chemistry between him and the lovesick Duke Orsino.  Consequently it’s Gary Shelford’s subtly scheming servant woman Maria who steals the show -  a neat natural in heels with a nifty side-line in tap-dancing.

Hampstead, Eton Avenue, NW3 3EU
Tube | Swiss Cottage
Until 20th July
£22- £29 each
playhampsteadtheatre.com

Fences

 TNT

Lenny Henry was already into his fifties – and, as a comedian, a household name - when he picked up a Best Newcomer award for his performance of Othello.

But although he may have come to straight acting pretty late in a busy career, he’s gone on to prove that the accolade marked far more than a flash in the pan achievement. Now, at almost exactly the same age as Troy Maxson, the Pittsburgh garbage collector at the centre of American playwright August Wilson’s domestic drama (written in 1987 but set thirty years earlier) he gives a powerfully emotional account of a flawed and complex man who knows what he has, but can’t stop himself from destroying it.

It’s a rather unbalanced play which is sometimes over wordy and keeps us waiting rather too long for an unexpected bombshell.  But, before then, Henry and Tanya Moodie’s Rose (his devoted wife of 18 years) establish the loving, supportive warmth of what looks like a solid relationship, and his contentedly boozy payday banter with best buddy Bono (Colin McFarlane) confirms that this ex con has become a reliable, if not altogether satisfied, working man.

Yet, stuck in a dead end job and still resentful that his prowess at baseball was never fully recognised because of his colour, Troy seems set to deprive their teenage son (Ashley Zhangazha’s Cory) of his own chance at being signed up for a career in football and is dismissive of elder son Lyons’ (Peter Bankole) jazz gigs. Even his support of his war-damaged brother proves to be less than straightforward.

Wilson, who died in 2005, completed a cycle of ten plays, one for each decade, chronicling the African American experience and Paulette Randall’s revival of this Pulitzer prize-winning drama does him proud, with Henry’s totally convincing Troy taking his time to build the fence which will bothkeep intruders out and confine his family within.

Duchess, Catherine Street, WC2B 5LA
Tube | Covent Garden/ Charing Cross
Until 14th September
£20.00-£52.50 (Premium seats £65)
nimaxtheatres.com

Our Town

 TNT

Just a few chairs, tables, ladders and a leafy bough hanging overhead comprise the scenery in Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning study of everyday life in the small fictional community of Grover’s Corner somewhere in New Hampshire.

 Written in 1938, it was pretty experimental for the time –with the character of the Stage Manager (a competent Simon Dobson in present day clothes) breaking through the fourth wall to address the audience directly whilst also dropping into the action to serve as a drugstore owner and a clergyman.

Most of the characters make only fleeting appearances over three acts and thirteen years from 1901 to 1913, with the focus mainly on the changing relationship between young Emily whose father edits the local paper and George, the doctor’s son. Between them, the ensemble of fourteen (drawn from a multitude of countries and performing with varying degrees of conviction) play a host of other locals – from the milkman to the alcoholic church organist (whose misery is never explained) and from a university lecturer to a dead woman waiting to welcome another spirit to a different place.

Apparently this reminder to appreciate what one has and to make the most of one’s allocated time has been performed somewhere in the US every night for the last 75 years. Tim Sullivan’s mildly diverting if somewhat underpowered production does little to explain why – but Zoe Swenson-Graham’s Emily glows with optimism in this gentle portrayal of ordinary American life at the turn of the century.

£15+, Kings  Head Theatre,
Upper Street, N1 1QN
Tube | Angel kingsheadtheatre.com

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Infamous : Derren Brown

 TNT

What to say about a show that you’re not allowed to say anything about?

Several times during the course of a superbly entertaining evening, Derren Brown – psychological illusionist and mentalist extraordinaire – entreated punters and critics alike not to divulge what goes on in over two and half hours of mind-boggling entertainment.

But I’m sure he won’t object to my saying that he’s a first rate showman who continues to astound every time he appears on stage, holding the audience in the palm of his hand throughout and accomplishing the seemingly impossible – be it mathematical calculations, feats of memory or soliciting visits from beyond the grave.

Somehow, he seems to get right inside people’s heads and, as one would expect, audience participation features large, ranging from a few moments with a microphone to zoning out on stage during the interval, with the majority of the selections decided, in egalitarian fashion, by the random throw of a high-flying Frisbee.      

With co-writer and director Andy Nyman, Brown has put together a slick show built less on shock factor than previously and more on personal confession.   But I’ve still got absolutely no idea how he does what he does. He may, as he reveals, have been called “dickbrain” at school, but those brains of his have stood him in pretty good stead ever since and I just hope they’re already mulling over the contents of his next mind-bending production.

Palace Theatre
Shaftesbury Avenue, W1V 8AY
Tube | Leicester Square / Tottenham Court Road
Until 17th August£16 - £51nimaxtheatres.com

Pride and Prejudice

 TNT

Celebrating the 200th anniversary of the appearance in print of Jane Austen’s ever-popular novel, Simon Reade’s stage adaptation breezes through the husband-hunting escapades of the five Bennett sisters as possible suitors come and go.

Simply staged on a two-tier rotating set of green and gold railings (which at one point become the frames for the numerous Darcy family portraits), Deborah Bruce’s efficient production stays true to the fundamental spirit of the book as the garrulous Mrs Bennett despairs of finding sufficient wealthy, well-connected bachelors to guarantee the financial security and social status of her all-female brood.

Fresh out of drama school, Jennifer Kirby gives a likeably assured performance in the pivotal role of Elizabeth, capturing both her independent spirit and her outspoken wit as she initially despises  - then falls for - David Oakes’ haughty Mr. Darcy.

But, in general, there’s little room for depth or subtlety – partly, perhaps, because of the open air venue (charming though it is when the rain holds off and the temperature improves), partly because of the necessity to strip away much of the original.

So although Ed Birch’s ingratiating clergyman cousin, Mr Collins, gets the laughs with his ridiculous spindly-legged bows and his determination to recruit a wife – almost any wife – in order to please his benefactress (Jane Asher’s disdainful Lady Catherine de Bourgh) it’s a rather too broad interpretation.

But Rob Heaps displays an endearingly puppyish happiness as the somewhat colourless Mr Bingley when he finally gets his sweet-natured Jane, the empire-line dresses place the production firmly in period, and there’s enough dancing in various country homes to make this an enjoyable, if unexceptional, evening.

 

Open Air Theatre
Inner Circle, Regents Park, NW1 4NR
Tube | Baker Stree
£25.00 -£55.00
Until 20th July
openairtheatre.org

 

The Cripple of Inishmaan

 TNT

He’s waved his wand on screen as Harry Potter, whipped off his clothes on stage as a troubled teen in Equus and now Daniel Radcliffe has adopted an Irish accent, a hobbling gait and a mangled arm as Billy, the eponymous youth who lives with his adoptive “aunties” on an isolated Aran isle and dreams of escape.

Set in 1934, Martin McDonagh’s 1990s black comedy mixes fiction with an element of fact (an American film crew really did descend on the area to make the documentary Man of Aran) but the characters are his own.

Pat Shortt’s grubby Johnnypateenmike splits his time between delivering  (usually very tedious) local gossip and trying to kill off his frustratingly resilient old mother (June Watson) with forbidden bottles of illegally brewed booze. The aunts (who run the local store stocked almost entirely with stacks of canned peas) have their own peculiar habits - Ingrid Craigie’s fretting Kate talks to stones at times of stress whilst Gillian Hanna’s down-to-earth Eileen eats the sweets before the customers can even sample them.

With nothing to do to pass the time, Radcliffe’s Cripple Billy (there’s nothing politically correct about McDonagh’s work or the locals he portrays) has turned to books and staring at the cows – but he’s determined to grab the chance of a screen test on a neighbouring island.

It’s an effectively understated performance which contrasts well with Sarah Greene’s abrasive Slippy Helen, a foul-mouthed little minx with a penchant for cracking eggs over all and sundry.

There’s more than a touch of pastiche about London born and raised McDonagh’s writing, but his dialogue fizzes with cruelly funny brio and, fully acknowledging this, Michael Grandage’s snappy production makes you laugh even when you know you shouldn’t.

 

Noel Coward, St. Martin’s Lane, WC2N 4AU
Tube| Leicester Square
Until 31st August
£10.00 - £57.50
MichaelGrandageCompany.com delfontmackintosh.co.uk

Sweet Bird of Youth

 TNT

The considerable talents of Marianne Elliott (who directed both the unmissable The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and War Horse) can’t disguise the fact that this 1959 Southern drama really isn’t Tennessee Williams at his best.

Even so, it was a celebrity magnet at its West End premiere in 1985 when movie legend Lauren Bacall took on the role of insecure, fading film star Alexandra del Lago (aka the Princess of Kosmonopolis) and now it’s former Sex and the City siren Kim Cattrall who’s looking for oblivion in the arms of gigolo and would-be actor Chance Wayne, a Gulf Coast drifter whose ambition and imagination far exceed his actual achievements.

She has wealth and, he believes, influence – both of which he means to deploy in an attempt to win back his childhood sweetheart, Heavenly, whose father wants him run out of town - or worse – after what he did to his daughter on his last visit.

Cattrall’s red-wigged Alexandra reveals the vulnerability of a pill-popping, gin-guzzling woman who believers her career is over (though one would expect anyone who wakes up with no idea of where she is to look considerably more raddled) and also demonstrates the imperious grandeur of a diva used to having things her own way.

Seth Numrich does a decent job as Chance, increasingly desperate and reluctantly coming to realise that, pushing thirty and with his hair starting to thin, his body won’t be in demand for ever.

But it’s only after their first over-long opening scene together that things really get interesting as Owen Roe’s red-faced, blustering, hypocritical Boss Finley (Heavenly’s father and local political bigwig) gives vent to his bigoted views and his racist plans to protect the purity of innocent white women.

Old Vic, The Cut, SE1 8NB
Tube:-Waterloo
Until 31st August
£11.00- £52.00
(some tickets for £12 bookable in advance for under 25’s)oldvictheatre.com

Bracken Moor

 TNT

A down-to-earth confrontation between a worried foreman concerned about hefty job losses and wealthy Yorkshire pit owner Harold Pritchard who is determined to close the local mine evolves into a more domestic melodrama of unexplained happenings and ghostly interventions in Alexi Kaye Campbell’s slightly spooky new play, a co-production between Shared Experience and the Tricycle theatre.

For a decade, the tragic loss of their then twelve year old son Edgar, who died stranded down a disused mineshaft, has blighted the Pritchard household.

Now, in 1937, idealistic and somewhat effete young Terence with his confrontational views has arrived with his mother and father to revisit the oppressive house where the parents of his childhood best friend, soul mate – and (had he survived) potentially more - still live in unhappy gloom.

Almost immediately he seems to be being taken over by a strange force which Helen Schlesinger’s unremittingly grief-stricken Elizabeth is convinced is her own dead son trying to communicate with her.

Daniel Flynn’s unbending industrialist determined to find a rational explanation, Joseph Timms convulsing convincingly before the eyes of Sarah Woodward’s no-nonsense, fiercely protective Vanessa and Simon Shepherd’s indulgent, none-too-bright Geoffrey Edward (his concerned parents) all give good performances in Polly Teale’s austere production.

But much as I’m a fan of the previous work of both company and playwright, on this occasion Campbell’s plotting and social concerns put me in mind of too many other more satisfying plays - from Ibsen’s A Doll’s House to J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls – to make this foray into the supernatural and psychological more than passingly entertaining.
                         
Tricycle, Kilburn High Road, NW6 7JR
Tube | Kilburn
Until 20th July
£14.00 - £28.00tricycle.co.uk

Rutherford & Son

 TNT

 

In 1912, Githa Sowerby scored a remarkable success with her first play – this fine drama about a Northern family dominated by a single-minded industrialist who puts the future of the glass manufacturing company he has nurtured far above the happiness of his own children.

In an era when women weren’t expected to be playwrights, it was initially put on under the name G.K. Sowerby and its psychological sensibilities likened to those of Ibsen.

A century later, Northern Broadsides’ production (unobtrusively edited by Blake Morrison and directed with a sure hand by Jonathan Miller) confirms its enduring merits - and relevance - as widowed capitalist Rutherford’s malign influence on his offspring is made apparent, along with his passion to secure the future of a company under threat in difficult economic times.

There are welcome touches of humour – especially from Kate Anthony’s Aunt Ann who is never short of something to complain about. But Rutherford’s loveless household is gloomily oppressive – his social snobbery blights any chance of happiness for his thirty-six year old daughter, one son has become an ineffectual clergyman, and the other (despite an expensive Harrow education) has returned from London with a working class wife and no desire to take over the works.

Well written and astute (despite the occasional drift towards melodrama) this is a very welcome revival in which Catherine Kinsella’s acutely observed, constantly snubbed Mary reveals unexpected mettle and Barrie Rutter’s tyrannical paterfamilias leaves no doubt about the determination of a man convinced, no matter what the cost, that he always knows best.

St James, 21 Palace Street, SW1E 5JA
Tube: Victoria
Until 29th June
£15 - £50.00stjamestheatre.co.uk

Happy New

 TNT

It’s New Year’s Eve and for buzz cut siblings Lyle and Danny it’s out with the old as they lie on their identical single beds in almost identical clothes.

Their faces are slathered in detoxifying lemon flower face masks and cucumber slices soothing their eyes. But starting afresh and eradicating their traumatic history isn’t that easy.

Their language is restlessly stylised, their behaviour weird (to say the least) as they mix up a cocktail of marmite and antifreeze, gin and a kipper, topped off with a leather waistcoat.

They’re too scared to leave the confines of their flat and face the reality of modern life in Australia - though not too scared, at least in Danny’s case, to have nipped out for a bit of surreptitious sex with someone other than his journalist girlfriend Pru.

There’s something not quite right about these brothers and with the appearance of an irate Pru (Lisa Dillon in full throttle) their story of abandonment – first in a chicken coop, then by the media - gradually unfolds.

Substantially recast since a successful run at the Old Red Lion last year, Aussie actor Brendan Cowell’s overblown three-hander makes for uncomfortable if often compulsive viewing, sucking us into their claustrophobic, interdependent world in which it is never quite certain who rules the roost – or whether life out there really is worth tackling.

I can’t say I enjoyed time spent in their company, but the acting is first rate. Joel Samuels (from the previous cast) is both volatile and vulnerable as Lyle, whilst there’s a blank detachment in the eyes of William Troughton’s equally damaged Danny.

And as their distress mounts and their avian tics intensify, it becomes only too clear that it will take far more than a purifying skin treatment to enable them to shuck off their troubled past.

Trafalgar Studios (2)
Whitehall, SW1A 2DYTube
Tube | Charing Cross till 29th June   

£15- £30atgtickets.com/trafalgarstudios

The Perfect American

 TNT

Following on from their glorious production of his Satyagraha, Improbable Theatre and its artistic director Phelim McDermott renew their relationship with composer Philip Glass to collaborate on his new opera, a fictionalised musing on the last months of Walt Disney’s life.

Based on the novel by Peter Stephan Jungk and with a libretto by Rudy Wurlitzer, it paints a far from flattering portrait of the man who created an empire out of cartoon creatures and crowd-pleasing theme parks, accusing him not only of racism but also, through the fictitious character of a disgruntled former employee (Donald Kaasch), suggesting that he was little more than a megalomaniac CEO who profited from the creative abilities of others.

As he lies on his hospital bed, dying of cancer, this Disney (impressively sung by Christopher Purves in a rich, clear baritone) revisits the inspirational pleasures of his early life growing up on a farm in Marceline, Missouri, flashes back (in non-linear fashion) to time spent at work and with his family, and agonizes over his own mortality.

There’s a brief interlude with a malfunctioning animatronic Lincoln (Zachary James) which Disney tries to bend to his will, and, amusingly, an even shorter one with a posing Andy Warhol.

The choreographed movement frequently feels awkward - putting the team of check-trousered animators through their bunny-hopping paces just doesn’t work. But the simple line drawings and animal silhouettes projected on flickering, gauzy curtains add a cinematic feel and reflect the drafting process.

Whilst doing nothing to offend his many fans, on first hearing this isn’t amongst the most memorable of Glass’s two dozen opera scores. But Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck admirers might feel slightly cheated – the production couldn’t have used those iconic copyright images even if it had wanted to as, not surprisingly, the Disney estate declined to grant permission.

English National Opera at the London Coliseum
St Martin’s Lane, WC2N 4ES
Tube | Leicester Square/Charing Cross
Until 28th June
£19- £75eno.org

The West End Men in Concert

 TNT

This harmless show delivers both more and less than the title suggests – we get the four guys with West End credits it promises (though by the time you read this there’ll have been at least one scheduled cast change since opening night) but there are also a female guest appearance in the second half and a sizeable choir which materialises rather late in the day.

In the course of a little over 2 hours including interval, the curly one (Lee Mead), the short one (Glenn Carter with an impressive range), the ginger one (powerfully voiced David Thaxton) and the expensive one (Matt Willis) – the nomenclature is theirs, not mine - sing solo and harmonise agreeably in a compilation of songs from West End musicals and chart hits, backed by a five piece band led by indefatigable MD Will Stuart.

The result is a predominantly pleasing if unadventurous evening in which the quartet appear first in suits, then in jeans and finally in formal DJs.

There’s the occasional duff note and misjudged arrangement, and the roguishly slinky Willis (who made his name as one third of Busted) hasn’t yet thrown off some pop group mannerisms, but it’s easy to warm to a production which aims to cater for all ages by including such well known numbers as Memory, Close Every Door (no prizes for guessing that it’s Any Dream Will Do TV show winner Mead, who goes solo on that one), Some Enchanted Evening and Bohemian Rhapsody.

Ironically, though, it’s Kerry Ellis’s spine-tingling rendition of Defying Gravity and the stirring chorus-backed One Day More (both of which come from shows which are still going strong) which prove the highlights of the evening.

Vaudeville, Strand WC2R 0NH
Tube: Charing Cross
Until 22nd June
£20 - £47.50nimaxtheatres.com

Race

 TNT

Sharp, short and surely deserving a West End transfer, David Mamet’s 2009 play about race, sex, lies and the American legal system sometimes stretches credulity, but 80 minutes whiz past in a flash thanks to cracking dialogue and a pair of kick-ass performances.

Accused of raping a black woman with whom he’d previously had consensual sex, it’s hard to believe that potential new client Charles Strickland (Charles Daish), rich, privileged, white and with an ingrained sense of entitlement, would be quite so reticent about disclosing relevant information to the new legal representatives he’s keen to appoint.

But he’s no fool and has deliberately jettisoned his Jewish lawyer in favour of another firm with one black and one white partner.

Jasper Britton’s quick-fire Lawson and Clarke Peters’ Brown (his quietly lethal black colleague) are both excellent, in effect bringing the courtroom into their Manhattan offices as they try to tease out a defence which will acquit Strickland of a charge in which (guilty or not) the racial odds are stacked against him.

Mamet doesn’t probe as deeply as he might - the lawyers’ contention that all black folks hate white folks is a simplification too far. But Terry Johnson’s swift production grips throughout with its unexpected twists, and the presence of a junior associate (Nina Toussaint-White) - who happens to be black, young and female - adds extra layers to Lawson and Brown’s deliberations regarding the advisability of even touching such a toxic case.

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

Relatively Speaking

 TNT

It’s lies, lies and more lies - plus a multitude of misunderstandings - in Lindsay Posner’s lively revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1960’s comedy of betrayal and unfailing good manners. 

Accurately reflecting the spirit of the times, he catches the period when pre-marital sex had started to become acceptable fun rather than a prelude to marriage. Still, it must have been something of a shock when it first hit the West End in 1967 and a naked young man, Greg, (admittedly with a strategically wrapped sheet and a bunch of flowers) got out of the single bed he’d obviously been sharing with dolly bird Ginny.

It’s early Sunday morning and she’s dashing off to catch a train to visit her parents in Buckinghamshire - or so she says. But on the spur of the moment, after just a month together and despite the pair of men’s slippers lurking beneath her bed, he decides he wants to marry her –– and follows her to suburbia to get an answer.

What ensues is a masterfully constructed farce of conversations at cross purpose and muddled identities as Greg mistakes Sheila (wife of Philip, Ginny’s much older lover) for her mother, Philip assumes Greg is having an affair with Sheila, and (much to the late-arriving Ginny’s consternation) English politesse sees him invited to stay for lunch.

There are lots of laughs but there’s also more than a tinge of the darkness so evident in Ayckbourn’s later plays when Jonathan Coy’s blustering, philandering Philip berates Felicity Kendall’s hurt, housewifely Sheila. And there’s good work too from Max Bennett and Kara Tointon as the younger couple whose future relationship may well turn out as wretched as that of their middle-aged hosts.

 

Wyndhams, Charing Cross Road WC2H 0DA
Tube | Leicester Square
Until 31st August £20.00 - £52.50 delfontmackintosh.co.uk

To Kill A Mocking Bird

 TNT

Wrapping up in winter coat and boots to go to the theatre in this unseasonable summer might not seem a very enticing prospect. But, although Timothy Sheader’s production of Christopher Sergel’s stage adaptation of Harper Lee’s 1960 novel gets off to a rather shaky start with the opening words frustratingly blown away on the wind, by the time the light fades and small town Alabama attorney Atticus Finch quietly dominates the courtroom scene, the focus narrows, the Park casts its usual magic, the tension mounts and the enduring strengths of this American classic set in the 30’s come to the fore.

The adult members of the cast read sections of the narrative from their own various, well-thumbed editions of the novel – a device which emphasises the universality and durability of the lessons to be learnt from this tale of racial prejudice and growing up. But their natural English accents tend to break the atmosphere created by young tomboy Scout Finch and her brother Jem (played with great likeability and effectiveness by child actors Izzy Lee and Adam Scotland on the night I went) and by the playfully chalked-on lines which define the landmarks in their hometown.

A single tree – first hung with a rubber tyre which serves as Scout’s makeshift swing, later with an ominously dangling noose - dominates the almost bare stage, a reminder that there’s unlikely to be much justice for the black worker (a dignified Richie Campbell) wrongly accused of raping a young white woman.

And Robert Sean Leonard (best known from the TV series House) adds tremendous low-key integrity as the widowed Atticus, a defence lawyer prepared to face a lynch mob and the opprobrium of the townsfolk in order to protect a fellow human being from a fate he doesn’t deserve.

Open Air Theatre
Inner Circle, Regents Park, NW1 4NR
Tube:-Baker Street
£25.00 -£55.00
Until 15th Juneopenairtheatre.org

Limbo

 TNT

Longing for the heat of a warm fire to fend off the summer chill?

Then head off to the Southbank’s Wonderground where a ringside seat in the Spiegeltent will bring you close enough to feel the flames before they’re extinguished between the open lips of a diminutive, tattooed fire-eater. She swallows swords, too, so this isn’t a show for the fainthearted.

The bruised legs of an aerial chains artist bear witness to the sometimes wayward nature of the boleadoras (a weighted throwing weapon of interconnected cords) which she wields provocatively in this 75 minute show of thrills (but hopefully no spills) accompanied by versatile musicians and electric-acoustic oriented composer and singer Sxip Shirey.

There’s a niftily athletic tap dancer, a macabre contortionist (Jonathan Nosan) who makes you question which way round he should actually be, a flirty French guitarist (Mikael Bres) who plays with a feather as he zooms down the Chinese pole, and a totally ripped Russian (Danik Abishev – a finalist in 2009’s Australia’s Got Talent) with a breathtaking hand-balancing routine carried out behind bars of light.

Fun, cheeky and with a touch of dusty darkness, it’s just a shame that the intensity sustained throughout this gravity defying show finally drops just before it ends.

 

Priceless London Wonderground, Southbank Centre
Tube | Waterloo
Until 29th September£10 - £50limbotheshow.com

The Hothouse

 TNT

Director Jamie Lloyd goes all out for laughs in his snappy revival of Harold Pinter’s prescient, Ortonesque black comedy. But he also ensures that the reality of torture isn’t forgotten with a final image that leaves one in no doubt that misplaced authority can be very dangerous indeed.

Though written in 1958, it only received its first production in 1980, and the weaker moments of this early work benefit enormously from crack casting as the head of an unspecified institution finds himself undermined – and with good reason – by his subordinates.

It’s Christmas and one of the numbered (never named) inmates has been found dead whilst another has just given birth.

The always excellent Simon Russell Beale’s ex-colonel Roote, eyes bulging furiously, extracts every ounce of comedy from the script, squirming one moment, blustering the next, and John Simm’s ambitious Gibbs is the epitome of creepily controlled efficiency, each measured word and movement a calculated step in his plan to supplant him.

John Heffernan’s aptly named Lush gets soused in more senses than one, whilst Indira Varma’s provocative, sexually indiscriminate Miss Cutts lures underling Lamb (Harry Melling) into the sacrificial chair to sample the brutal treatments this so-called “rest home” dishes out to its unseen patients.

Trafalgar Studios
Whitehall, SW1A 2DYTube
Tube | Charing Cross
Until 3rd August £10- £54.50thehothousewestend.com www.atgtickets.com/trafalgarstudios

Public Enemy

 TNT

Moving the action to the 1970s, David Harrower’s updated version of Ibsen’s 1882 drama, usually known as An Enemy of the People, takes a rather unsympathetic approach to all concerned.

Even Nick Fletcher’s longhaired Dr Stockmann (the medical officer of a Norwegian town whose economy is heavily reliant on tourism) is hard to warm to, both despite and because of his determination to place the health of the people above everything else, including the welfare of his own family.

It’s obvious from his wife’s demeanour that she’s been through tough times with him before and now, having fallen on his feet in his current position, his decision to go public about his findings threatens to take everything from them again.

He’s discovered that, far from being healthy, the local baths are in fact contaminated, not least by effluent from his father-in-law’s tannery. Though initially supported by the local newspaper, it doesn’t take much for his older brother, the Mayor (a crafty Darrell D’Silva) to make the editor realise the cost of closing the baths and putting things right.

Stockmann’s garishly orange home looks uncomfortably set for conflict right from the start, but Miriam Buether’s long, stretched design comes into its own when Stockmann deliver his impassioned, principled public speech, making us the townsfolk and complicit in his vilification.

And although Richard Jones’ interval-free production (in spite of its contemporary political resonance) doesn’t always hit the mark, it makes it very clear that self-interest rules and it’s not just the water that’s polluted.

 

Young Vic, The Cut, SE1 8LZ
Tube | Southwark / Waterloo
Until 8th June, £10 - £32.50youngvic.org

Passion Play

 TNT

The days when a cheating spouse had to jog to the nearest public telephone box with a handful of coins in his pocket are long gone, and text messages rather than love letters have become the currency of illicit affairs, but in most other respects Peter Nichols’ 1981 destruction of an apparently fulfilling 25 year marriage has barely dated.

It’s far from the standard account of a relationship under threat, though. What begins as a conventional triangle - a predatory younger woman with a penchant for men old enough to be her father making a blatant play for picture restorer James right under the nose of his wife Eleanor - expands to include the couple’s alter egos, Jim (Oliver Cotton) and Nell (Samantha Bond).

Their clothes may be almost identical to those of their counterparts, but the interior thoughts they voice as they appear on Hildegard Bechtler’s minimalist stage are at odds with the words coming from the mouths of James and Eleanor.

Light-heartedly amusing at first, with Zoe Wanamaker’s singing teacher Eleanor secure in her marriage and the previously faithful James (Owen Teale) squirming with lust, guilt and adulterous confusion at the unexpected attention, David Leveaux’s strongly cast production turns much darker as Annabel Scholey’s unashamedly vampish Kate really gets her claws into him.

Swelling snatches of choral music accompany the affair, and Wanamaker, betrayed, is almost unbearably touching as she starts to crumble in the face of a force neither James - nor Jim - really wants to resist.

Duke of York’s, St Martin’s Lane, WC2N 4BG
Tube | Charing Cross / Leicester Square
Until 3rd August
£15.00- £57.50 (plus a few £10 day seats)atgtickets.com