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