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