Author: Paul Lewis

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Reviews Roundup – Lionel Bart’s Oliver!

Perfect, or too perfect?

Gielgud Theatre
A smiling bearded actor in a colourful outfit holds his walking stick like a flute
Simon Lipkin in Oliver! Photo: Johan Persson

Lionel Bart’s Oliver! is one of the few, perhaps the only, bona fide British musical from the Golden Age when shows were packed with memorable songs. The legendary producer Cameron Mackintosh has loved Oliver! since childhood and returned to it again and again. His latest production was praised in many 5 star reviews for Matthew Bourne‘s choreography, Paule Constable’s dramatic lighting, Lez Brotherston’s intimate set, Simon Lipkin‘s portrayal of Fagin and for being a little darker than past incarnations. But some found it too old-fashioned and lacking in bite.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

Marianka Swain at LondonTheatre (5★) delivered her customary thoughtful analysis: ‘Bart’s musical can be something of a tonal challenge: steeped in the darkness of Dickens’ novel, yet simultaneously packed with jaunty tunes and cockney knees-up dance numbers. Bourne (who choreographs and co-directs with Jean-Pierre van der Spuy), manages that balancing act perfectly, giving us plenty of grime and grit alongside transporting pleasures.’ She declared ‘the true star is Paule Constable and Ben Jacobs’s sublime lighting design, which brings quite literal light and shade to the production. It’s genuinely terrifying when the villainous Bill Sikes looms out of the smoky darkness, his menacing shadow the first thing we see.’

WhatsOnStage‘s Sarah Crompton (5★) noted, ‘Its quality lies in the way that the collaborators … make a contrast between constant movement and stillness, allowing the focus to slide from broad, bright dance scenes full of life, to powerfully arresting moments of peril and sadness.’ Adam Bloodworth at CityAM (5★) declared, ‘director and choreographer Matthew Bourne has surely opened the musical of the year with his astounding dance sequences. It’s especially the ensemble numbers that are sheer staggering feats of imagination, offering insane levels of detail to bring Victorian London back to life.’

Helen Hawkins on the Arts Desk (5★) praised the ‘impeccable singing and dancing, teamed with a brilliant set, atmospheric lighting and a Poor Theatre design that makes the staging oddly intimate’. Allya Al-Hassan at Broadway World (5★) pointed out, ‘Whilst retaining the joy and exuberance of Bart’s music, it does not shy away from the dark heart of child poverty, exploitation and violence of Charles Dickens’ story. It also manages to have moments of pure theatrical comedy. It is a deft and masterful achievement.’

Neil Fisher for The Times (5★) added a star to his colleague Clive Davis’ previous Chichester review: ‘you can’t fault the verve with which Bourne drills the big numbers, nor the cast’s bonhomie.’ Of the show’s Fagin, he said, ‘Lipkin captures both the plight of the traumatised immigrant – and of anyone trying to lead a good life in a dark and devious world’. The Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish (5★) enjoyed ‘dollops of theatrical delight’, and said ‘the whole thing is delivered with such tightly choreographed panache’.

Dominic Maxwell in The Sunday Times (4★) described how ‘Matthew Bourne’s sumptuous production at the Gielgud Theatre in London gives us a Victorian London of shadows, spotlights and smoke. It looks dangerous, but gorgeous. Nice job.’

The Observer’s Susannah Clapp (4) picked out ‘Superb lighting by Paule Constable and Ben Jacobs shows the action as if through Oliver’s eyes: a harsh glitter of grey over the workhouse; a deceptive golden glow for Fagin’s den.’

The Stage‘s Sam Marlowe (4★) described how ‘Designer Lez Brotherston delivers a murky London of steel gantries, pawnshops, pubs and coffee houses, bustling with picture-perfect denizens: self-important men with mutton chops, moustaches and stovepipe hats, and purse-lipped women in mob caps with formidable bosoms. Bourne’s buoyant, nimble choreography is wrapped around darker drama that makes its mark in broad strokes.’

Not everyone was so impressed. Fiona Mountford at i-news (3★) said ‘rarely have I felt so awkwardly aware of a piece’s fundamental pretence…Everything here looks precise and lovely, immaculately well-drilled, but it’s almost impossible to feel emotionally invested.’

Andrjez Lukowski at Time Out (3★) felt it lacked punch. Take Simon Lipkin’s Fagin: ‘Making him so nice he won’t offend anyone is certainly one idea, but it does further defang Dickens’s yarn.’ He contended ‘The biggest flaw, though, is one that’s haunted the show for decades: Oliver himself is just pretty bland.’

Having reviewed it in Chichester, The Guardian decided the production didn’t require a second review

Critics’ Average Review 4.4

Value Rating 46 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Oliver! is at the Gielgud Theatre until 28 September 2025. Click here to buy tickets direct.

If you’ve seen Oliver! at the Gielgud Theatre, please add your review and rating below

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Reviews Roundup – Titanique

Absurd-but-fun musical floats the critics’ boat

criterion theatre
Three singers on stage with heads together
Luren Drew & cast members in Titanique at the Criterion. Photo: Mark Senior

It started as a one-off cabaret concert and became a Broadway hit. However Titantique has never lost its roots as a gay parody of the film Titanic (as well as of musicals and much else), which features ‘Celine Dion’ recounting her experience as a passenger on board the fated ship. Lauren Drew impressed as Dion, as did Layton Williams.
The show sounds, and is, crazy, but most of the critics found it fun (to a greater or lesser degree) except one. The term ‘mixed reviews’ is often used in these roundups, but it’s rare for a show to receive both a five and a one star review.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

Our most curmudgeonly critic The Times’ Clive Davis (5★) loved it:  ‘Raiding the Canadian singer’s back catalogue, the show delivers a demented jukebox musical. An inspirational cast led by Lauren Drew, playing Dion in all her sequinned glory, rises to the challenge of delivering a script that turns the madness up to 11 and beyond. It’s Airplane! with a musical theatre twist.’ In the Daily Mail (5★), Patrick Marmion wrote, ‘This is one of the merriest performances I’ve seen in the West End’.

Nick Curtis in the Standard (4★) explained why it cheered him up: ‘It comes from the American school of wilfully schlocky, sloppy gay parody, packed with pop culture references, always seemingly on the brink of hysteria and collapse.’ Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (4★) said, ‘it is quite frankly, riotously absurd. But it’s also endearing. And although neither quite as clever or hilarious as it sets out to be, it is so strongly sung and energetically performed under the direction of Blue and the musical direction of Adam Wachter, that it is impossible not to have a good time.’

’Fans of the film will certainly be satisfied, but there is no doubt that Titanique is largely a show for pop-culture-loving, queer theatre kids,’ advised Olivia Rook at LondonTheatre (4★). She drew attention to ‘Drew as Dion who is a revelation’ and Layton Williams who ‘gives one of the show’s stand-out performances, taking on a variety of roles from camp museum guide and a suggestive Seaman (plenty of double entendres here), to a Tina Turner-inspired “Iceberg B-tch”, who sets the stage alight during a rendition of “River Deep, Mountain High”.’

City AM’s Adam Bloodworth (4★) declared this ‘is probably the most brazenly weird thing on in the West End right now.’ He explained, ‘This is more like an east London queer cabaret show than heteronormative homage.’ Despite finding it exhausting, he said, ‘I’ll admit I do want it all over again.’

Arifa Akbar in The Guardian (3★) called it ‘a big queer cabaret with renegade energy. Outre and amped up to 11 in pace and humour, it is billed as “camp chaos.” That’s an understatement.’ Andrzej Lukowski for Time Out (3★) wasn’t so impressed. What it made exceptional for him was the portrayal of Celine Dion: ‘‘ultimately it’s an affectionate, funny and thoroughly lovable turn from Drew, who lights up the stage every time she steps on it.’ However, ‘it’s undeniably a fun way to start 2025’.

Paul Vale for The Stage (3★) ‘There’s little to disguise the fact that this is essentially a fringe show…But it’s relentlessly funny’. The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish (3★) had reservations (‘My enthusiasm sank as the disconnect between mirth and tragedy became inescapable’) but decided that ‘on its own terms, guying epic cinema with a shoestring theatricality, it’s hard to fault’. Fiona Mountford in the i paper (3★) pointed out it is ‘not the most heteronormative show you will ever see’. She said she ‘was by turns amused and bewildered, but I did not constitute the optimum audience demographic.’

Gary Naylor on The Arts Desk (1★) didn’t like it at all: ‘The vibe, on a rudimentary set that suggests, but no more than that, a generic liner, is of an undergraduate show brought to Edinburgh for a boozy midnight house. Worse still, just when you think you can consign panto to the back burner for 11 months, the fourth wall collapses, the dread fear of audience participation descends on the front rows and the double, though more often just single, entendres start to batter your ears in wave after wave. That they are crude is fine, that they are devoid of wit isn’t.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.5★

Value Rating 45 (Value rating is the Critics’ Average Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Titanique is at the CriterionTheatre, booking until June 2025.   Click here to buy tickets directly.

If you’ve seen Titanique at the CriterionTheatre, please add your review and rating below

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The Little Foxes at the Young Vic – review

Anne-Marie Duff is chilling in 20th century classic

★★★★

A woman in a dress holding a cup faces a man in a suit with a paper under his arm, both are standing
Anne-Marie Duff & Mark Bonnar in The Little Foxes. Photo: Johan Persson

Like me, you probably see more acting on TV than in the theatre. That means I’m always interested to see whether a favourite actor can make that transition from screen to stage.  The Little Foxes at the Young Vic was packed with faces from British television. Mark Bonnar who you will have seen in Shetland and Guilt; Steffan Rhodri best known as Dave Coaches from Gavin & Stacey; Anna Madeley who is Mrs Hall in All Creatures Great And Small; and one certifiable star in Anne-Marie Duff most recently seen in Bad Sisters.

I have seen all these actors on stage before, but it is still a thrill to be reminded that, like so many other screen actors, they are often only giving us a glimpse of their skills when they’re in front of a camera. The real test of their acting ability comes when they are trapped in the time and space of a theatre show, communicating directly with a live audience. This cast passed the test with distinction. 
Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes was premiered in 1939 but this attack on capitalism focuses on a family of landowners from the American South around 1900. So, the first question you might ask is, why did Lillian Hellman, who was a communist by the way, set her play around 40 years in the past? I’m guessing it’s because 1939 was not the best time for an anti-capitalist message. America had just experienced successful state intervention in their free market system in the form of Roosevelt’s New Deal, so a mixed economy may have seemed more attractive than a communist one. More than that, communists, capitalists, rich and poor were in the process of uniting in a fight against fascism, or at least that was the perception. So it might have been easier to show unadulterated capitalism, raw in tooth and claw as it were, from a couple of generations earlier.
The first half introduces us to the Hubbard family. There are two brothers- Ben played by Mark Bonnar, cunning as a fox and arrogant as a peacock, initially strutting about the stage, nonchalantly shrugging off challenges. Ben boasts of the way his family, who were traders, took advantage of the Civil War to buy up property while the Southern grandees were being defeated, fighting for their principles. He is even proud of their exploitation of what he calls ‘coloured people’.
The other brother Oscar, a weak bully, is played by Steffan Rhodri with a rat-like blend of slyness and nerves. The lead character is their sister Regina played by Anne-Marie Duff. Her bravura performance dominates the evening, entrancing us with her hyperactive character, who is by turn charming, quivering with frustration or displaying a diamond hard will power that is genuinely chilling. Her sparkling eyes and wide smile are a mask that covers her amorality.
The brothers inherited their father’s money. When they have an investment opportunity that will make them a huge fortune, Regina is shocked and angry to find she has been left out of the spoils. She plots to get both her share and revenge, by using her ailing husband’s money to make up the additional investment her brothers need.
After a slow first half that establishes the characters and their situation, the play takes off like a SpaceX rocket, as these greedy siblings ruthlessly trick and use one another.  Regina becomes more ruthless than any of them in her ambition.
It’s a savage expose of people whose greed trounces love, loyalty and all other moral values. But, is it relevant today? I guess the answer to that partly depends on your politics, but the fact is, capitalism remains the dominant system, despite regulation and the welfare state. Add to which, we appear to be entering an era of less regulation, in America at least, and we have seen the privatisation of public services in the UK. So I suppose it is a good time to be reminded that however high the quality of service or product we receive from companies, their number one priority is profit, not people. 

Powerful performance from Anna Madeley

A mature woman in a dress looks down
Anna Madeley in The Little Foxes. Photo: Johan Persson

The play presents some alternatives. Oscar’s wife Birdie is from an aristocratic family. She represents the ‘old values’ based on patronage, duty and responsibility. She is an alcoholic, bullied by her husband, and ghosted into a lack of confidence. She may be brittle- she laughs nervously, she looks down, there’s fear in her eyes- but still expresses her beliefs. It’s a powerful performance from Anna Madeley, showing Birdie beaten down but still proud. The quality and depth of her acting won’t surprise you if you’ve seen her as Mrs Hall, giving much-needed weight to the cosiness of All Creatures Great and Small.

Regina’s husband and daughter show that behaving morally is an option. They are played by John Light and Eleanor Worthington-Cox, the latter subtly showing how her character grows in strength as events force her to choose between standing up for her beliefs or standing by watching. In fact, the play’s strongest message is that most of us stand by watching bad things happening and do nothing about it. In stark contrast, Oscar’s son, played by Stanley Morgan, is morally bankrupt, like his father.
The black servants show two different sides of the class that has been most exploited and abused by this family. Freddie MacBruce as Cal goes about his job without question, but Andrea Davy’s Addie is firm in her opinions and tenderly loyal to those who treat her well.
Quite a few reviewers criticised the design, suggesting that its mid 20th century look was not appropriate, and even confusing, when used in a play set in 1900. On the contrary, I think Lizzie Clachan’s design is a stroke of genius. First and foremost, it doesn’t distract. A turn of the century design could have made the story seem of a bygone age, irrelevant to today. On the other hand, modern day clothes would have been too anachronistic for a play that’s set over a hundred years ago and mentions horses and carriages.
Instead, Ms Clachan cleverly plumps for the neutrality of clothes of the time it was written. The dominant beige reinforces this.  The absence of the trappings of the life of the well-off suggests these are people who want wealth for its own sake. They aren’t even that interested in enjoying the luxuries that come with it.
It’s a damning picture of capitalism but I think it’s unfair to suggest, as some critics did, that it fails because the main character doesn’t evoke enough sympathy. I found that I had plenty of sympathy with her over the way she was treated and therefore cheered her on as she exacted revenge. But that sympathy only heightened the shock of seeing just how far she would go and what sacrifices she would make. Yes, she does become a monster but it seems possibly sexist to me to suggest that this portrait of a greedy capitalist woman can only can only be of interest if we have sympathy for her. I don’t think you have to sympathise with the murdering Macbeth to get involved in his character and story, or with the greedy Lehman Brothers to find them fascinating. I didn’t like Regina as a human being but it was gripping to see how far she would go and whether she would finally realise there is more to life than money.
Director Lyndsey Turner delivers a powerful interpretation and the excellent cast squeeze every ounce of drama out of it. Before the interval I was wondering whether it was ever going to take off but when it did it was riveting. And if you love watching great acting, this is one not to miss.

The Little Foxes is at the Young Vic until 8 February 2025. Buy tickets direct from the theatre

Paul paid for his ticket
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Reviews Roundup: Till The Stars Come Down

Wedding from Hell is Comedy Heaven

DOrfman at the national theatre

 

This is an abbreviated roundup giving ratings only:

The Guardian 5★

LondonTheatre 5★

Telegraph 5★

WhatsOnStage 5★

Independent 5★

Time Out 4★

The Times 4★

The Standard 4★

The i 4★

The Arts Desk 3★

Average Critics’ Rating 4.4★

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The 5 Best & 5 Worst Rated Theatre Shows of 2024

For Black Boys is the best new show

For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide… Photo: Johan Persson

Looking back at this year’s reviews roundups, I see two of the best reviewed shows this year were returns: People Places And Things with Denise Gough and The Lehman Trilogy. They scored a critics’ average rating of 4.6★ as did the best new play of the year For Black Boys. The other big winners were The Open Air Theatre’s Fiddler on The Roof (4.5★), Imelda Staunton in Hello Dolly (4.4★), Til The Stars Come Down (4.4★), and The Cabinet Minister (4.4★).
This year’s turkeys were The Duchess (2.6★) with Jodie Whitaker, Barcelona (2.6★) with Lily Collins, and The Tempest (2.7★) with Sigourney Weaver, the latter being rated Worst Value of the year thanks to the eye-watering prices. The lowest average critics’ rating this year went to Shrek The Musical (1.8★) followed by Eddie Izzard’s Hamlet (2.0★).

The Observer’s Susannah Clapp is my Critic of the Year for combining insight, intelligence and wit. Add to which, she is the queen of the putdown. This is what she said about Barcelona: ‘the range of feeling remains small: from giggle to whimper’, and here’s her description of Sigourney Weaver: ‘not only unsure of her lines but apparently uncertain of what a line is’.

Happy 2025!

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Theatre reviews roundup: The Invention of Love

Intellectual Hell

Hampstead theatre
Dickie Beau and Simon Russell Beale in The Invention of Love. Photo: Helen Murray

In Tom Stoppard’s revived 1997 play, the poet and classicist A E Housman finds himself dead in Hades, meets his younger self and explores his memories. Simon Russell Beale as the older Houseman garnered great praise, but some of the critics found the play too clever by half.

Matt Wolf popping up at LondonTheatre (5★) noted, ‘Abstruse as Stoppard’s hyper-erudite text can sometimes be, it is suffused at every turn with feeling. You watch in continual awe – and perhaps occasional confusion – as classical references get lobbed across the footlights, only to clock the deepening ache of this near-definitive portrait of unrequited love.’

Tim Bano in The Independent (4★) said, ‘Blanche McIntyre’s subtle, uncluttered production…delivers a pretty good case for the play being …a bona fide masterpiece.’

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish (4) was also impressed: ‘There’s more to chew on in two or so hours than at the amplest festive feast.’ He said Simon Russell Beale ‘makes every line resonate with fresh thought and feeling’.

David Jays in The Guardian (3★) said, ‘The quicksilver Russell Beale is a vocal glory, leaping in a breath from flute to poignant bassoon, from wit to sorrow.’

Alexander Cohen at BroadwayWorld (3★) also liked SRB but was unsure about the play: ‘this is Stoppard at his most frustrating: lapping tides of stuffy self-referentiality, self-congratulatory smirks, and pats on the back for every reference you can count pull you under the waves.’

Chris Omaweng for LondonTheatre1 (3★) wrote, ‘A demanding and yet not completely inaccessible show, it is at least consistent in its intense analysis of ancient works as well as the world inhabited by Housman and his contemporaries.’

Dominic Maxwell of The Times (3★) said ‘it offers plenty of pleasures, not least a characteristically lucid and tender central turn from Simon Russell Beale. It’s wise, witty, dense, dazzling, opaque. And sometimes it’s a slog.’ To put it another way, ‘this is a play with great monents, not a great play ‘

The i-paper‘s Fiona Mountford (2★) found it ‘unbearable’. About Stoppard, she said, ‘too often his lofty intellect cowers audience members into submission’. But not Ms Mountford with her ‘Oxbridge classics degree’. She explained, ‘we have three hours of often indistinguishable men exchanging achingly arch lines about the minutiae of classical grammar and quoting screeds and screeds of Latin at each other.’ To put it more plainly: ‘it feels less like drama and more like intellectual masturbation’. Est quod est! as Fiona might say.

Critics’ Average Rating 3.4★

The Invention of Love continues at Hampstead Theatre until 1 February 2025. Buy tickets directly from the theatre. 

If you’ve seen The Invention of Love at Hampstead Theatre, please add your review and/or rating below

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Theatre Reviews Roundup: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof with Daisy Edgar-Jones

Tennessee Williams’ classic thrills and chills

almeida theatre
Actor Kingsley Ben-Adir lies on his back while actor Daisy Edgar-Jones leans over him in a scene from Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at the Almeida Thetare
Daisy Edgar-Jones and Kingsley Ben-Adir in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Hopes must have been high at the Almeida when they announced Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Director Rebecca Frecknall has had spectacular success with her previous productions of Tennessee Williams. Daisy Edgar-Jones, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lennie James play, respectively, a sexually frustrated wife, an alcoholic, possibly gay husband, and a bullying, dying family patriarch. As the Time Out review said, ‘the horror here is the hell of other people. Everyone is trapped with everyone else’.

Unfortunately for The Almeida, a number of critics felt trapped by this long production, although most gave favourable reviews. Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lennie James received high praise but the reviewers didn’t agree about Daisy Edgar-Jones with comments ranging from ‘so good’ to ‘irritating’.

[Links to the full reviews are given but some websites may be blocked unless you have a subscription]

In fact, it was Time Out’s Andrjez Lukowski (5★) who loved it most of all. Daisy Edgar-Jones, he proclaimed, ‘is so, so good, inhabiting Maggie with a burning, vivacious swagger, alternatively self-mocking, self-pitying, compassionate and vicious’. Kingsley Ben-Adir displays, he said, ‘terrific acting, but sacrificing showing off to the greater good of the play.’.

The Standard’s Nick Curtis (4★) too praised the cast in this ‘striking and vivid interpretation’. He said Daisy Edgar-Jones ‘gives an intense and physically exact performance as a woman born poor and aware of the currency of her body and its fecundity. There’s intention in every tilt of her shoulders or arch or her bare instep.’ He talked of ‘Kingsley Ben-Adir, bringing nuance to stumbles and slurs’ and ‘Lennie James, terrifying…he’s magnetic.’

‘Performances are strong all round,’ agreed Holly O’Mahony for LondonTheatre (4★). The Financial Times’ Sarah Hemming (4★) spoke of ‘Rebecca Frecknall’s bruising, claustrophobic production, in which bad faith seems to hang in the air like mist, pooling in the corners of Chloe Lamford’s coldly opulent set.’ ‘What a savage, poisonous, ugly work this semi-autobiographical piece proves anew in Frecknall’s unflinching, if overlong revival,’ observed Clare Allfree in the Telegraph (4★).

Siobhan Murphy for The Stage (3★) declared: ‘if baroque, red-in-tooth-and-claw intensity is what you seek from a Williams play, you won’t feel short-changed.’ Arifa Akbar in The Guardian (3★) decided, ‘Ultimately this is a production that you admire rather than one that moves you.’ Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (3★) had a similar reaction: ‘illuminating, but strangely passive’.

The Independent’s Alice Saville (2★) didn’t like it: ‘Frecknall’s play runs long and slow at 180 minutes – and it feels unbalanced, too, with Maggie’s thin scenes outweighed by her husband’s bloated ones.’

Adam Bloodworth for CityAM (2★) found ‘this version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof only skims the surface, rarely getting into the darkness at the heart of Williams’ play about trauma, ageing and identity.’ For him, ‘Daisy Edgar-Jones is irritating, never defusing from a perpetual state of angry-shouty indoor voice.’ The Times’ Clive Davis (2★) was another left cold by the Hot Roof: ‘this weirdly off-kilter production, alternately ponderous and manically overheated, could almost be a parody of Williams’s gothic manner.’

Critics’ average rating 3.3★

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof can be seen at The Almeida Theatre until 1 February 2025.  Buy tickets direct from The Almeida Theatre

If you’ve seen Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at the Alemida Theatre, please leave a review and/or rating below 

 

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Theatre Reviews Roundup: Sigourney Weaver in The Tempest

Sigourney Weaver is Alien to Shakespeare

theatre royal drury lane
Sigourney Weaver in The Tempest. Photo: Marc Brenner

Garnering some of the worst reviews of the year, The Tempest has turned out to be a disappointing start to Jamie Lloyd‘s Shakespeare season at the mighty Theatre Royal Drury Lane. All eyes were on Sigourney Weaver (still seen as Ripley from Alien by many) but her flat delivery of the lyrical language was decried by the critics. As if that wasn’t enough, the barbs thrown in the direction of Jamie Lloyd’s stark production suggest a rare failure after his string of hits ranging from his 2018 Pinter season to Evita, Cyrano, The Seagull, The Effect and most recently Sunset Bouevard. Views were mixed on the matter of Soutra Gilmour‘s dark set and Matthew Horne‘s comedic turn but everyone praised Mason Alexander Park as Ariel.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

‘Weaver is not a masterful Prospero: her verse delivery is flat and featureless, which leaves a vacuum in this key role,’ said Arifa Akbar in her Guardian (4★) review. However, there were compensations: ‘The swirling black emptiness around the set looks fathomless, blasts of light bring tremendous visual drama, and sheer silken sheets spanning the length of the stage are used in simple but sensational ways. The production creates its own dark magic with large-scale grandeur.’ She concluded, ‘It’s all thoroughly odd, but in an audacious and enlivening way.’

Neil Norman in the Express (4★) said ‘Weaver is a supremely confident presence, dressed in grey and white and delivering Prosero’s great speeches with a clarity of diction that is characteristic of the entire production.’ As for the production, it ‘rarely falters throughout’. He expanded: ‘Lloyd’s vision is spectacular but spare’ and ‘Soutra Gilmour’s design is simple but epic’.

The Telegraph‘s Dominic Cavendish (3★) found, ‘Weaver fails to weave the requisite magic.’ He spoke of ‘much woodenness in her delivery – an even-keel approach that verges on the automaton.’

Andrzej Lukowski in Time Out (3★) said about the Hollywood star: ‘She’s not a good verse speaker, delivering everything in a concerned-mom monotone that fails to hold this big, weird play together.’ but he did call the production ‘an awesome spectacle’.

The Standard‘s Nick Curtis (3★) too was disappointed: ‘instead of lightning in a bottle, it’s a damp squib.’ He declared, ‘An interesting thematic suggestion that Prospero’s island is a place of rebirth gets lost amid the sonorous intonation and tedious comic relief. For all its stark visual boldness, this is a curiously old-fashioned take.’

Sarah Hemming in The Financial Times (3★) described how ‘Lloyd and lighting designer Jon Clark sculpt the space, sending the characters hurtling across the stage in a glowing burst or silhouetting them stock-still on the set’s dark hills.’ However, ‘human intricacy and intimacy often elude this staging. There’s a lack of jeopardy and it’s curiously unmoving’.

Patrick Marmion for the Mail (3★) commented that Jamie Lloyd’s ‘insistence on using mics not only makes everyone look like they’re lip-synching, it paradoxically renders some of the Bard’s finest verse in muttered whispers.’ He was disappointed with the use of the star: ‘I’d like to have seen Weaver’s emotional range stretched a bit more than simply deploying her as an alpha-female observer on her own story. It’s a bit like renting a vintage Cadillac and using it for the weekly shop.’

LondonTheatre‘s Olivia Rook (3★) found Sigourney Weaver ‘too detached to have much impact, often simply speaking the lines rather than offering up a new interpretation.’ But she did like the look of the production: ‘Soutra Gilmour’s grey-scale, futuristic, moon-like set, with mountainous rock face and rubble, is visually striking and, once lit by Clark’s lighting, aptly captures the hostile environment of this rough, wild island. There’s little substance in this production, but plenty of style. It’s worth a trip just to see Gilmour’s beautifully bleak set.’

Dave Fargnoli in The Stage (3★) described ‘a terse, unfussy minimalism to the performers’ delivery that builds an effectively eerie atmosphere, but leaves Shakespeare’s poetry feeling underserved, its meaning adrift.’ He liked ‘Soutra Gilmour’s bold design (that) sets the action in a bleak, blackened wasteland, where shreds of white smoke crawl across an undulating landscape of glimmering volcanic sand. He found Sigourney Weaver’s ‘delivery flat and frequently tentative’.

For Alice Saville in The Independent (3★), Sigourney Weaver ‘doesn’t have the charisma to anchor this fanciful story’. She comes up with an interesting analogy for the setting: ‘This island feels like a queer fetish club at 4am, where time stands still’. Well, now we know what Ms Saville does after a hard night’s reviewing!

Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (2★) called it ‘misconceived and under-achieved’. She continued, ‘The unremitting mood of darkness is not leavened by any move towards hope or redemption. There is no sense that this is a play about revenge and forgiveness; the tone is unremitting.’

Clive Davis in The Times (2★) wasn’t impressed by Ms Weaver: ‘she turns in a strangely impersonal performance’. As for the production: ‘as the colours of the backdrop and Gilmour’s costumes are so muted, Lloyd’s vision of a magical kingdom soon grows monotonous’.

BroadwayWorld‘s Alexander Cohen (2★) didn’t get on with it. ‘The three times Oscar-nominated Hollywood veteran mumbles through Prospero’s lyricism with barely a glint of an attempt to grasp the coiled intricacies of the language’ he said. And the production? ‘Lloyd’s chuck-it-at-the-wall-and-see-what-works vision doesn’t help. The auteur’s trademark visual austerity strips the island of specifics, with piles of black ash flecked by glaring crepuscular light forming a planetary hellscape.’

Heather Neil at The Arts Desk (2★) said ‘Lloyd and his designer Soutra Gilmour have conjured a strange, otherworldly, hilly, inhospitable place’. ‘There’s not much evidence of the “sweet airs” Caiban speaks of’, she added. She said she ‘would have preferred a more actively engaged Prosopero’. Like nearly all the other critics, she praised Mason Alexander Park’s Ariel as ‘the central energetic force throughout’.

Fiona Mountford in the re-branded i paper (1★) called it a ‘dismal non-event of a production’ and awarded a dismal one star. She said Weaver’s ‘wooden delivery never wavers from a tone of blank meditation’. The Observer’s Susannah Clapp (2) delivered the knockout blow: ‘She is flat: not only unsure of her lines but apparently uncertain of what a line is, delivering phrases as if she were measuring portions on a plate, without a roll or much driving sense.’

Critics’ Average Rating 2.7★

Value Rating 16 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

The  Tempest is at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane until 1 February 2025. Buy tickets from the theatre

If you’ve seen The  Tempest at the Theatre Roayl Drury Lane, please add your review and rating below 

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Theatre Reviews Roundup: Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812

A mighty little musical

donmar warehouse
Natasha Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812

Dave Malloy’s award-winning sung-through musical version of a short but eventful section of Tolstoy’s War and Peace has taken ten years to travel from Broadway, but the critics thought it was worth the wait. With some exceptions, they loved the music, the production (directed by Tim Sheader) and the performances. So, another hit for Mr Sheader in his first season as Artistic Director of The Donmar.

[Links to the full reviews are given but some websites may be blocked unless you have a subscription]

Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (5★) was captivated: ‘both epic and intimate, vast and tiny. It is magnificent, infinite riches in a little room.’ She concluded, ‘It’s a riveting journey, true to Tolstoy’s themes yet compressing his mighty thoughts into one of the best new musicals for years, both hugely entertaining and deeply intelligent.’

The Observer’s Susannah Clapp (5★) said it was ‘aswirl with colour and movement, alive with decisive characterisation and rending story’.

Marianka Swain at LondonTheatre (5★) described it thus: ‘Dave Malloy’s gonzo, knowing, blisteringly funny and wildly creative chamber opera only takes one small section of the novel, and although it is undoubtedly, excitingly ambitious, this big-hearted show invites the audience into his dazzling world.’ She continued: ‘the most luminous element by far is the fantastic cast and onstage band laying into Malloy’s magpie score, which brilliantly fuses Slavic folk with EDM, rock-pop, jazz, and yearning ballads.’

Claire Allfree for the Telegraph (5★) said, ‘Malloy’s score is a gypsy carnival of sound…The singing throughout is outstanding and allows for expressive individual moments’.

Debbie Gilpin at BroadwayWorld (5★) found ‘The heady mix of ballads and uptempo numbers, not to mention drama and comedy, in the relatively intimate environment of the Donmar makes for a unique musical theatre experience.’

Arifa Akbar in The Guardian (4★) called it a ‘dynamic new production, which has stratospheric levels of energy’ but tempered her praise by saying, ‘the show is held back by its own polished larkiness though it is hugely and amusingly original all the same.’ She concluded, ‘this is a terrific creation and at its best it soars.’

‘Sparkling and strange, Dave Malloy’s EDM-fuelled rock opera is a thing to marvel at’ declared The Independent’s Alice Saville (4★). She went on, ‘Malloy’s … musical is a masterclass in prosody, with its often-thin lyrics given emotional heft and depth by orchestration choices, which elicit their meaning.’

Laurie Yule writing for The Stage (4★) picked out ‘Most notable, though, are the jaw-dropping performances from an energetic and passionate ensemble.’ Andrzej Lukowski of Time Out (4★) called it ‘one of the great musicals of our day’.

There were dissenters. The Standard’s Nick Curtis (3★) described it as a ‘massively audacious, massively pretentious musical’. Clive Davis of The Times (3★) was unmoved: ‘if its sheer theatricality is never less than dazzling, the relentlessly quirky tone…kept me at a distance from the characters. I laughed, I grinned, but I never really felt inclined to shed a tear.’

Critics’ average rating 4.7★

Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 can be seen at The Donmar Warehouse until 8 February 2025.  Buy tickets direct from The Donmar Warehouse

If you’ve seen Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 at the Donmar Warehouse, please leave a review and/or rating below 

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Theatre Reviews Roundup: Robin Hood at The London Palladium

Julian Clary and Jane McDonald in Robin Hood at The London Palladium

In only a few years, The London Palladium panto, directed by Michael Harrison, has become a Christmas tradition, renowned for its star-packed bill, lavish sets and borderline smut. Joining Julian Clary this year are Jane McDonald, Nigel Havers, Charlie Stemp, Marisha Wallace and ventriloquist Paul Zerdin. Most of the critics had fun but some were unimpressed by the lack of panto traditions and the rude jokes.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

‘Harrison throws just about everything at this gloriously over-the-top show,’ said Paul Vale in The Stage (5★), perilously close to going over the top himself. ‘The technical wizardry on stage is a marvel, from a 3D sequence through the perils of Sherwood Forest to the special effects…It may play fast and loose with the traditions of pantomime, but nobody breaks the rules quite like Harrison and his team.’

‘The London Palladium pantomime has scored another bullseye!’ proclaimed Tom Millward in WhatsOnStage (4★). About the star of the show, Olivia Rook at LondonTheatre (4★) found ‘most of his jokes remain classic Clary smut’ She concluded, ‘There are many of the hallmarks of a traditional panto here — the show is full of razzmatazz, double entendre, and an eye-watering amount of spectacle — but it is a truly unique theatrical experience. You’ll certainly leave feeling merry.’

Nick Curtis for The Standard (3★) declared, ‘the smut is as OTT as the sets, costumes and effects, and no one cares too much about the plot.’ He observed ‘No expense has been spared for the razzmatazz,’ and ended, ‘I’d have liked less video, and a plot that at least gestured towards narrative coherence. But otherwise, Michael Harrison’s production is an effective celebration of the showy elements of panto that mark most people’s introduction to theatre.’

The Times’ Dominic Maxwell (3★) had reservations. It was, he said,  ‘too chaotic and too bawdy to be suitable for children’  However, ‘It’s still an enjoyable evening. Lovingly done, beyond lavish, laugh-out-loud funny when Clary is clicking into gear. Yet there is a thin line between a sense of abundance and a sense of clutter.’

Claire Allfree for the Telegraph (2★) couldn’t stand it: ‘Each year, it’s the same glitteringly wrapped package – retina-burning megabucks sets, a wardrobe department to make Busby Berkeley weep, a prat-falling Nigel Havers whose exclusive purpose is to be the butt of Clary’s jokes, and of course a steady stream of smut from Clary who can rarely get through a scene without mentioning the back passages.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.5★

Value Rating 29 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Robin Hood is at The London Palladium until 12 January 2025. Click here to buy tickets directly from the theatre.

If you’ve seen Robin Hood at The London Palladium, please add your review and rating below

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