One Monkey Don't Stop No Show

 TNT

Sitcom comes to the Tricycle in the shape of Eclipse Theatre company’s lively account of African-American playwright Don Evans’ (1938 -2003) broad social comedy set in the Seventies.

As well as giving more than a nod to the conventions of Restoration comedy, it also owes a considerable debt to the American television Cosby Shows - which director Dawn Walton emphasises by staging her production as though it’s a live studio recording, canned applause and all.

Evans locates his black middleclass Harrison family in the predominantly white suburbs of Philadelphia where dad Avery (Karl Collins) is a pastor, malapropping mum Myra (Jocelyn Jee Esien) has snobbish pretensions and a spendthrift way with the household income, and preppy son Felix has probably impregnated his “unsuitable” streetwise teenage girlfriend L’il Bits.

Then there’s Avery’s 20 year old recently orphaned niece from the rural South whose pigtails and denim dungarees hide a surprising canniness, and straight-talking club owner Caleb who’s been appointed her reluctant guardian.

The performances are all, deliberately, larger than life – which, after a while, can occasionally grate in a show that’s twice as long as a TV episode. But for the most part it’s all good fun with some great one-liners, a liberal scattering of social satire, and Felix’s furtively hidden copy of Alex Comfort’s The Joy of Sex to add unexpected spice to the humdrum routine of his parents’ marital relations.

Tricycle, Kilburn High Road, NW6 7JR
Tube | Kilburn
Until 9th February
£14.00 - £22.00
tricycle.co.uk

The Silence of the Sea

 TNT

The final Donmar season, showcasing the work of its Resident Assistant Directors, comes to a sombre, atmospheric end with Anthony Weigh’s adaptation of the subversive 1942 novella, written during German occupation by French writer and illustrator Jean Bruller under the pseudonym Vercors.

It’s not just the sea that doesn’t speak.

The two French protagonists – an old man and the niece he took in when his brother, a member of the Resistance, had to flee for his life - greet Werner, the unwanted “house guest” billeted in their coastal home, with a relentless, stony silence despite the garrulous young officer’s friendly overtures. But Simon Evans’ subtly conceived production (which almost does away with props) is awash with other sounds – doors closing, the changing weather, lapping waves, the lilt of music played on the piano from which the silent young woman (a wary, resentful Simona Bitmaté) would not be parted, and, most of all, the overhead footsteps of Werner, occupying the room upstairs.

The performances are faultless. Finbar Lynch is a master at delivering compelling monologues addressed to the audience, and he excels again here as the reclusive loner using silence as the only mode of resistance. And, Leo Bill’s upper-class, smartly-suited Werner, a musician in another pre-war life, drastically charts the change from eager naivety to horror when the cruelty of his Nazi compatriots is shamelessly exposed on leave in Paris.

Trafalgar Studios (2)
Whitehall, SW1A 2DY
Tube | Charing Cross
Until 2nd February
Tickets: £22
donmarwarehouse.com

Kooza

 TNT

After over a quarter of an hour of tedious low-level clowning around, Canadian company Cirque du Soleil finally gets into its stride with the calibre of lavishly costumed acts which have won a worldwide following.

A trio of interwoven contortionists flex themselves into seemingly impossible shapes, a trapeze artist flies in the air, a duo on a unicycle performs with balletic flair and there’s leapfrogging on the high wire.

After the interval things get even better. Two men tumble and twist not only within - but also on -the rim of their wheel of death (a cross between a pair of hamster wheels and a furiously rotating egg-timer). Seemingly defying gravity, their rough, fluid grace combined with daredevil attack make them the stars of the show.

Hard on their heels come a woman skilfully twirling luminous hoops into mysterious marine outlines and a precariously balanced solo artist building a lofty tower of chairs with controlled elegance. Finally, a couple of the heftier members of the (unnamed) cast use their combined weight to propel their lighter colleagues off the teeter board. One wearing a pair of stilts, another strapped to just a single one, they’re sent spinning high into the air to land with perfect precision.

Over the years Cirque have sacrificed some of the ethereal wonderment of their early productions to commercial success – but, if only they’d ditch the clowns and reduce the overlong interval, they’d have a far tighter show which punters could sit back and relish without having to worry about missing the last tube home.

Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, SW7 2AP
Tube | South Kensington
till 14th February
tickets £20 - £95royalalberthall.com
cirquedusoleil.com

American Justice

 TNT

 

Originally conceived as a two-hander under the title “As We Forgive Them”, drama teacher Richard Vergette’s expanded and retitled version spans the eight year period (2008-2016) of the Obama administration but is still short enough to leave plenty of time for discussion afterwards.

Set in a cheerless penitentiary in a southern US state, it brings together handcuffed and shackled prisoner Lee Fenton and John Daniels (Peter Tate), the father of the young woman he was convicted of murdering for a $10 bill and a packet of cigarettes.

In an apparent act of mercy, newly elected Democrat congressman Daniels has used his influence to save Fenton from death row, and has undertaken to teach him himself in what turns out to be the first step in instigating a policy of educating illiterate offenders.

Under the disapprovingly watchful eye of the Republican warder (David Schaal), a transformation occurs as Ryan Gage’s angry Fenton graduates from sullen inarticulacy to self-control and an impressive level of literacy.

But there’s more than one twist in Lisa Forrell’s starkly staged, provocative production which suggests that education - especially when provided too late – can prove a treble–edged sword.

Arts Theatre,Great Newport Street, WC2H 7JB
Tube | Leicester Square
Until 9th February£22.50 (Mondays - £17.50)artstheatrewestend.co.uk

Viva Forever!

 TNT

With a reputed £4m in advance box office takings – and the dosh she’s made from Mamma Mia! - I’d guess producer Judy Craymer isn’t all that worried about what the critics have to say about her latest venture. But this juke-box musical stuffed with the Spice Girls’ back catalogue proves a major disappointment on just about every front.

Such story as comedian Jennifer Saunders has cobbled together is derivative, littered with weak jokes (most of which fall flat) and, for the most part, shoehorns in songs willy-nilly – even the programme plays safe by listing them alphabetically without any indication as to who’s going to sing them or in what order. It rarely matters.

All that really happens is that TV talent show judge Simone pulls Viva out of a four-strong (but personality-free) wannabe girl band and decides to mentor her solo in a last-ditch attempt to salvage her own fading career.

Will Viva make it on her own? And will she get to meet the mother who gave her up for adoption? Quite honestly, it’s hard to care – and Saunders doesn’t seem that interested either, letting the plot fizzle out like a soggy cigarette.

Sally Dexter tips over into the cartoonish as bitchy Simone, Sally Ann Triplett works hard as Viva’s adoptive mother who lives on a houseboat and (when the action relocates to Spain) has an amusingly touching, out of practice bedroom scene as “2 Become 1.”

There’s not much to recommend this show, though – snatches of energetic choreography and the occasional quietly convincing moment aren’t enough to sustain feeble swipes at X-Factor and its ilk and at the hollow quest for fame.

But with the equally lazily-constructed We Will Rock You still running a decade after a critical bashing, there’s the distinct possibility that, even if it’s not what the critics really, really want Viva Forever! might just live up to its name.

Piccadilly Theatre, Denman Street, W1D 7DY
Tube | Piccadilly
booking to 1st June 2013
£20- £67.50vivaforeverthemusical.com

Somersaults

 TNT

A Eureka moment whilst playing a computer game has brought 30-something Scottish-born James unexpected wealth, a Hampstead home and a desirable wife. But, without warning, things start to slip and – beginning with his inability to remember the Scots Gaelic word for “somersault” – his comfortable life disintegrates.

The main focus of Iain Finlay Macleod’s 70 minute play (initially staged by the National Theatre of Scotland) is the importance of language - as a means of communication, and of preserving cultural and individual identity. It doesn’t always work.

The characters of both his wife and of the old university friend, who suddenly reappears are distinctly underwritten, and Richard Teverson’s detached liquidator (who deigns to leave him only “the necessities of life”) is a disconcertingly unearthly presence.

But the scenes conducted in a mix of Gaelic and English between James and his father (dying of cancer on the Isle of Lewis and his last link with his previously discarded roots) have a certain resonance, especially when the older man admits to throwing away the Gaelic dictionary for which he’ll have no further use.

And, although James is a far from sympathetic creation, David Carlyle plays him with total conviction in this thought-provoking if awkwardly constructed investigation into how language can define us.

Finborough, Finborough Road, SW10 9ED
Tube | Earl’s Court
Until 26th January
£12-£16
finboroughtheatre.co.uk

Cinderella

 TNT

Just five actors and a couple of versatile musicians take on all the roles in Sally Cookson’s unconventional and down-to-earth approach to the Brothers Grimm fairy-tale.

It starts rather slowly with a batch of woolly-hatted, goggle-eyed birds fluttering among the flat, barren trees, but once the story gets going it whips along at a fair pace, quickly despatching the heroine’s mother, then her father, until she finds herself perpetually scrubbing floors under the beady eyes of her step-mother and her prim and proper brood.

Instead of two ugly sisters, we get a gangly boy (a soft-hearted Tom Godwin) as well as a girl (Lucy Tuck) – though he, too, is forced by his scheming mum to tog up in a bright pink tutu in an attempt to snare the Prince.

Lisa Kerr’s gamin, no-nonsense Ella is a far cry from the usual mild-mannered Cinderella, the young man she falls for (Thomas Eccleshare in a frilly salmon shirt) is a bird-watching nerd with huge specs who, rather winningly, enlists much-needed audience help both to learn about marriage and in his search for the owner of the sparkly blue Doc Martens left behind after the ball.

And, neatly doubling as Ella’s widowed Dad and as his grim-faced second wife, Craig Edwards ruthlessly amputates several toes before finally meeting her just deserts in Travelling Light’s seasonal entertainment for all ages.

St James, 21 Palace Street, SW1E 5JA
Tube | Victoria
Until 26th January
£15.00 - £35.00stjamestheatre.co.uk

Privates on Parade

 TNT

Just the sight of Simon Russell Beale, possibly the greatest stage actor of his generation, dressed as Marlene Dietrich is alone worth the price of a ticket for the opening production of director Michael Grandage’s starry five show season.

Set in Singapore and the Malayan jungle, Peter Nichols’ 1977 revue-style comedy draws heavily on his own experiences as a naïve young recruit in Combined Services Entertainment, putting on morale-boosting concert parties during the Malayan emergency in the late 40s.

Beale gives a scene-stealing performance as bottle-blond Acting Captain Terri Dennis, camping it up deliciously in full slap, and openly on the hunt for the next casual encounter. But one can still see the compassionate heart of gold – and a controlled anger - beneath the elaborate costumes and double entendres.

There’s good support, too, from John Marquez’s Corporal, a foul-mouthed Brummie in charge of stores who has a wife back home but now swings the other way, and from Angus Wright’s gung-ho, blinkeredly Christian Major, unnecessarily leading his men into dangerous territory.

And - to counter the laughs, the songs and the abundant innuendo - there’s an intercultural love affair cut short by social expectation, plus a pair of silent, sinister watchful local servants helping to hasten the departure of the unwelcome British interlopers.

Noel Coward, St. Martin’s Lane, WC2N 4AU
Tube| Leicester Square
Until 2nd March
£10.00 - £57.50MichaelGrandageCompany.com