Duke Of York’s Theatre

The hordes of Tom Holland fans may have little interest in Jamie Lloyd’s production of Romeo and Juliet, or even in the acting, but the critics had plenty to say about both. It’s not unusual to have mixed reviews but rare that they range from 5 stars to 1 star. What divided them was the multi-media production which thrilled some and alienated others. Reviews of Mr Holland were mainly complimentary, although it was Francesca Amewudah-Rivers’ Juliet that took the acting laurels.

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

Dominic Cavendish in the Telegraph (5★) was taken to the heights. ‘The West End hasn’t ever really seen an R&J like it,’ he claimed. He described its Hollywood star as ‘beefy of bicep, but pale, achingly tender, at times teary and then cheery, all hormonal vulnerability’ but reserved his greatest praise for Juliet: ‘Amewudah-Rivers, 26, is a huge find, by turns understated, coy, comically off-hand, and defiantly passionate.’  He praised director Lloyd for ‘placing the lyrical language centre-stage.’ His conclusion? ‘The street-wise, star-cross’d lovers hold us in their spell, stamp the play with a 2024 freshness’

Patrick Marmion in the Mail (4★) went all weak-kneed: ‘Sometimes, it even feels as if Lloyd is deliberately trying to throttle the life out of the febrile passion that normally drives this headlong love story. And yet, cometh the hour, cometh the (Spider) man… all 5ft 8ins of him. Damn, he’s a buff and good-looking bloke. His commanding cheekbones and curving jaw suck the breath from the audience and keep us wrapped in his dreamy gaze.’ The Standard‘s Nick Curtis (4★) asserted, ‘They’re the most spellbinding star-crossed lovers I’ve seen in years.’ Tom Holland, he said, ‘gives us an impressive foreshadowing of the classical actor he could become.’ Of the production, he told us, ‘The action is sliced, diced and interspliced into a brisk two hours, laced with occasional anachronisms, blinding lights and jagged bursts of industrial music.’ In defence of Jamie Lloyd, he said, ‘the narrow view of Lloyd’s productions as mere star vehicles ignores his always-detailed ensemble work and the way he promotes new talent. Freema Agyeman and Michael Balogun find rarely-plumbed depths in the Nurse and the Friar here.’

Olivia Rook at London Theatre (4★) called it ‘a sexy, intense, and haunting piece of theatre.’ ‘Holland’s assured performance…graduates from laddish confidence to rippling rage. His talent is easily met by rising star Francesca Amewudah-Rivers.’ Sarah Hemming writing for The Financial Times (4★) had this analysis, ‘this is a compelling production: vivid, sad, restless. It brings home forcefully — and perhaps this is its point in today’s world — that death is not romantic.’
Andrzej Lukowski In Time Out (4★) decided, ‘this is a show about dead people. It’s staged like a particularly stylish radio play, the cast frequently standing static but artfully framed, talking into old fashioned floor mics.’ As to the actors, ‘Holland has a powerful stillness to him’ and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers ‘has a beautiful voice, an elegant lilt that works perfectly in a production that eschews physical business.’ He advised, ‘adjust to its fugue state and it’s deeply compelling.’

Susanna Clapp in The Observer (4★) said (and she’s seen a few) Francesca Amewudah-Rivers ‘is one of the best Juliets I have seen…I have never heard “What’s in a name?” considered with such precise wonder.’ Tom Holland is ‘light but concentrated, not soggy with romanticism but slipping easily in and out of tears…Together they fizz, often humorously, pointing up the verse with 21st-century inflections.’

Then come the reservations about Jamie Lloyd’s production. Sam Marlowe in The Stage (3★) found ‘the use of mics is inconsistent and seems to serve no particular purpose, and some of the filmed footage is equally confusing.’ Nevertheless she thought ‘Lloyd’s production is an arresting vision of an inequitable society in freefall, and of lost young people desperately attempting to navigate the disintegration guided by nothing but their own confused and fervid feelings.’ Arifa Akbar of The Guardian (3★) thought  ‘Holland and Amewudah-Rivers are perfectly cast, wired with an awkwardly cool teen energy, she a mix of innocence and streetwise steel, he jittering with sweaty-palmed earnestness’ but ‘Actors speak their lines – in a line – at the audience, a recurring tic in Lloyd’s work, now more insistently puzzling in its distancing, anti-dramatic effects, and too stilted to let loose the play’s passion.’ In the end, she felt that ‘The deliberate underplaying of emotion ultimately leeches the play of its tragedy.’

The Times’ Clive Davis (3★) declared himself ‘more perplexed than gripped‘. He explained, ‘What we get here is auteur theatre in which the actors are reduced to chess pieces to be nudged here and there by an invisible hand.’ It was, he said, ‘a conscientious but colourless radio drama’ in which ‘characters often address microphones rather than each other’. However he had positive words about Tom Holland: ‘This Romeo is quiet, fresh-faced and sensitive. In the opening scenes he really does convince you that he is an adolescent adrift, waiting to abandon himself to a doomed romance’.

’I was always interested, but I can’t say it made feel much,’ said Dominic Maxwell in The Sunday Times (3★).

After that, it gets worse. Hugh Montgomery of the BBC (2★) found it ‘a depressingly lifeless affair, which somehow manages to be both overstated and underpowered.’ ‘What really sinks things,’ he said, ‘is the continuous use of live camerawork.’ ‘Rather than the thrill of an unmediated live experience, the audience is dislocated from the performers, the performers are dislocated from each other, and there is little sense of a coherent world in which the characters exist.’ Tim Bano in The Independent (2★) called it ‘a Romeo & Juliet muttered through head mics, housed in a shell of industrial chic – or it was chic the first time Lloyd did it.’ As to the star-crossed lovers: ‘Holland’s acting skills are abundant in all the bits when he’s not speaking…he acts best with his face, she with her voice.’

Neil Norman of The Express (1★) didn’t mince his words: ‘Absolute drivel.’ He explained, ‘how quickly the trademarks of a Jamie Lloyd production have become clichéd and predictable.’ He didn’t like the star attraction either, ‘As Romeo, Tom Holland is a charisma free zone, achieving the unlikely feat of being both buff and weedy.’

Average critics’ rating 3.3★
Value Rating 21 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)

Romeo & Juliet runs at the Duke Of York’s Theatre until 3 August 2024. Buy tickets direct from thedukeofyorks.com

If you’ve seen Romeo & Juliet, please add your review and rating below

Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue

Fawlty Towers is so well-loved, there was always a danger that a stage adaptation would disappoint. For some critics, it did, but most found that John Cleese’s theatrical version of three classic episodes honoured the original. Opinions varied on whether the actors were making the characters their own or simply doing impressions but they did their job well and, crucially, Adam Jackson-Smith impressed as Basil Fawlty.

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

Neil Norman in The Express (4★) thought it was ‘the funniest show in town.’ He said, ‘Director Caroline Jay Ranger ensures that the comedy timing is immaculate’ and ‘Jackson-Smith is well nigh perfect.’ Fiona Mountford of the i (4★) ‘emerged two hours later, giddily and delightfully weak from laughing’. Clive Davis, an avowed fan of the TV series, declared in The Times (4★) ‘this genial condensing of three episodes delivers a hugely entertaining blast of unadorned nostalgia.’

Marianka Swain at LondonTheatre (4★) positively wallowed in the nostalgia. ‘This brand of farce, building from comedy-of-manners to manic slapstick, is also very much of its time.’ ‘with not a single word wasted, and some of the best punchlines ever written.’ ‘Caroline Jay Ranger keeps the pacing brisk and maintains the original’s zany energy and pin-sharp timing.’ Aliya Al-Hassan at BroadwayWorld (4★) called it ‘a very funny and entertaining evening, one that is remarkably faithful to the original material.’ She thought, ‘The cast is superb, landing every joke and intonation expected of them’ and picked out the main character, ‘Adam Jackson-Smith is the reincarnation of Cleese’ She was pleased with ‘the incredibly deft comic timing and old-fashioned and very British entertainment.’

In The Sunday Times (4★) Dominic Maxwell overcame his fears about putting a beloved TV show on stage: ‘This is a celebration, not a museum…This stuff still works. And it is done here with love as well as a laser focus. It is nothing I haven’t seen before, but it made me laugh a lot.’ It may not seem like it but Patrick Marmion in the Daily Mail (4) was happy that it replicated the TV show: ‘Caroline Jay Ranger’s production offers her company all the creative freedom that Kim Jong Un grants the people of North Korea.’

Brian Logan in The Guardian (3★) was quite enthusiastic: ‘this Fawlty Towers redux is no pale imitation of the original, but a very vivid one.’ Adam Bloodworth at CityAM (3★) seemed to like it despite himself: ‘it’s better than you’d think.’ He ended, ‘it might not be challenging theatre, but it’s a nostalgic joy.’ Dominic Cavendish in the Telegraph (3★), while saying it was ‘indisputably funny’, cautioned ‘the show falls far short of its peerless source material.’ ‘You admire the fidelity of the impersonations,’ he said, ‘while still pining futilely for the genuine article.’ He felt the comedy had worked better on television back in the 1970s: ‘the use of farcical elements…looks decidedly creaky today’

It was all too familiar for Tom Wicks in Time Out (3) : ‘We’re left anticipating old laughs rather than being surprised by new ones.’ Theo Bosanquet for WhatsOnStage (3) thought the same: ‘it inevitably struggles to feel like anything more than a kind of waxwork impression.’

For Nick Curtis in the Standard (3★) it was an ‘efficient and energetic stage adaptation’ but an ‘oddly soulless affair’. Twisting the butter knife, he continued, ‘it feels like an exercise in zombie nostalgia.’ While others revelled in its fidelity to the original, for Nick, ‘Caroline Jay Ranger’s production, overseen by Cleese, is too loyal to the source.’ I think we know the answer when Nick found himself ‘wondering if there were any artistic rather than purely commercial justification for this stage adaptation.’ As Manuel might say, ‘¿Qué’

Fawlty Towers The Play can be seen at the Apollo Theatre until 28 September 2024. Buy tickets directly from FawltyTowersWestend.com

Average critics’ rating 3.6★
Value Rating 40 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)

If you’ve seen Fawlty Towers, please add your review and rating below

Trafalgar Theatre

It’s a bit like bands playing their greatest hits. Last year Mark Rylance revived his performance as Rooster Byron in Jerusalem. This year we have Denise Gough returning in Duncan Macmillan‘s People, Place & Things. The revival recreates the exact 2015 production with the same director (Jeremy Herrin) and set designer (Bunny Christie) with critics agreeing that Ms Gough is every bit as good and, in some opinions, even better, as the actress who lies to others and herself as she struggles with addiction.

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

Susannah Clapp in The Observer (5★) declared, ‘Jeremy Herrin’s tremendous production, with tremendous Gough, is even better second time around.’ Anya Ryan in The Times (5★) said, ‘as nauseating and adrenaline-spiking as it gets, this is also theatre at its most vivid.’ It was, she declared, ‘an unforgettable night.’ Sam Marlowe in The Stage (5★) pulled out every adjective in her dictionary to praise the play and its star. ‘Duncan Macmillan’s drama is a hurtling exploration of addiction, existential crisis and identity, at once visceral and brainy, and Jeremy Herrin’s staging…is electrifying: a sensory immersion galvanised with euphoria and panic, rage, fear and pain.’ As for Denise Gough, her character’s struggle against addiction ‘is conveyed with such sweaty, nauseous, wracking vividness that, watching it, you almost forget to breathe.’ There are yet more adjectives: ‘Gough is blazingly charismatic, combining pugnacious swagger, fierce intelligence and raw vulnerability’

Alun Hood at WhatsOnStage (5★) also thought it was better than ever: ‘While you can’t improve on perfection, you can still surround it with such levels of excellence that its lustre seems magnified so that it shines even brighter.’  He listed the components: ‘Andrzej Goulding’s unsettling video designs, Bunny Christie’s clinical tiled set (featuring audience members onstage as though taking part in a particularly elaborate group therapy session) and above all Tom Gibbons’ sound and Matthew Herbert’s music…conspire to suggest a life tumbling out of control.’ He concluded it was ‘A painful pleasure, and a must-see all over again.’ It was not to be missed, agreed Aliya Al-Hassan at Broadway World (5★): ‘Staging, writing and acting meld into a pretty perfect production. However, this is very much Gough’s show; her mesmeric and urgent performance is a must-see.’

Jessie Thompson, Arts Editor at The Independent (5★), thought Denise Gough was better than ever, saying her performance ‘appears only to have grown in richness and exquisite fragility’. She praised the production as ‘a celebration of the healing power of art and theatre. It’s an electric communal experience. The play can now be regarded as a contemporary classic, Gough’s performance confirmed as one of the greatest of her generation.’

Nick Curtis in The Standard (5★) brought out the superlatives. ‘I’ve rarely seen a show where script, production and star mesh so perfectly. Bursts of pumping techno express moments of chaos and abandon. Bunny Christie’s antiseptic rehab-centre set is a blank canvas for staticky video projection and sudden eruptions: it frames a bank of audience members on the stage behind, so we can all have a good, hard look at ourselves.’ Even more than that, ‘it’s Gough’s navigation of a gamut of emotion, from withdrawal jitters to defensive truculence, disinhibition to raw vulnerability, that drives the evening. She’s magnificent.’ Olivia Rook for LondonTheatre (5★) agreed, ‘Gough’s titanic performance is still the beating heart of this play.’

Fiona Mountford at the i (4★) said, ‘this is Gough’s show and she is, once again, quite simply magnificent.’

Both the star and play wowed Time Out‘s (4★) Andrzej Lukowski. ‘Gough is magnificent and absurd in equal measure, a performance that’s simultaneously high comedy and high tragedy.’ He had reservations about the play but went on to say: ‘the first half’s whiff of cliche feels like an effective way of lulling us into a false sense of security before a second half that has to rank as one of the greatest in twenty-first century drama.’

Arifa Akbar in The Guardian (4★) ‘Bunny Christie’s pulsating white set design shows Emma (Denise Gough) bared – a specimen to be examined through the speculum of the stage, while simultaneously taking us into her mind, with all its distorted perceptions. The configuration of the auditorium mirrors this duality, giving the illusion of an audience that is seeing itself from without as well as being within.’ It was, she said, ‘bleak – but also brilliantly done’

A rare vote of dissent came from Nick Ferris in The Telegraph (3★). He couldn’t deny the power of the lead: ‘Gough has lost none of her power in bringing this complicated antiheroine to life. It is truly a summit performance for an actor that should be studied at drama schools for years to come’, but he questioned the quality of the play. He said, ‘It is certainly entertaining, but achieves this end only through playing to the basic dark allure that stories of drugs and broken people have.’ Worse than that, ‘Act two, unfortunately, sees the plot lose its way, descending into a mix of cheap stereotype and unrealistic climax.’ ‘In the end,’ he lamented, ‘it feels a shame that the story cannot sustain itself to meet the heights of Gough’s performance.’

Average critics’ rating 4.6★
Value Rating 53 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price. In theory, this means the higher the score the better value but, because of price variations, a West End show could be excellent value if it scores above 30 while an off-West End show may need to score above 60.)

People, Places & Things is at the Trafalgar Theatre until 10 August 2024. Buy tickets directly from Trafalgar Theatre.

Read Paul Seven Lewis’s review of the original production of People Places & Things

If you’ve seen People, Places & Things, please add your review and rating below