Category: Current Productions

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Reviews Round-up: Matt Smith in An Enemy Of The People 3.3★

Duke Of York’s Theatre

Matt Smith in An Enemy Of The People. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Henrik Ibsen‘s play about a whistleblower has been reimagined for the modern world by German director Thomas Ostermeier. Former Doctor Who and The Crown star Matt Smith takes on the lead role in a production that places the story in the modern world and includes he and his friends singing Changes by David Bowie and a scene in the middle where the audience become the crowd. Some critics liked this attempt to modernise Ibsen’s classic, others found it didn’t work.

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

Clive Davis in The Times (2★) said ‘Thomas Ostermeier’s sophomoric attempt to drag the Norwegian playwright into the 21st century is so clumsy it might be part of some sinister conservative plot to kill of left-wing theatre once and for all.’  Sam Marlowe in The Stage (2★) was equally unimpressed: ‘the production’s innovations are essentially arid and effortful’ and concluded ‘The whole thing is executed with superficial flair. But it feels like an elaborate exercise in preaching to the converted.’ Alexander Cohen in Broadway World  (2★) was unmoved: ‘Explosive monologues saddled with politics are hurled at us without the humanity to anchor them…Interminable one-dimensionality plagues the performance as a result.’

Dominic Cavendish in the Daily Telegraph (3 ★) was lukewarm in his response: ‘A play for today, on paper, but the concept could use a digital-era upgrade, and a shot more vigour, to set the world on fire.’ Alice Saville’s review in The Independent (3★) thought the modernisation ‘makes its message still more biting’ but found it ‘a morally and.. messy political drama’ and said that it ‘periodically slips into smugness’. Nick Curtis in  the Evening Standard (3★) described ‘coarse political sloganeering and audience participation’ and said: ‘The casually charismatic Smith and a fine supporting cast can’t stop it falling apart in the second half.’

Arifa Akbar in The Guardian (4★) had an opposite view. For her, it was ‘strangely subdued and halting in the first, less compelling act’ but said the second act ‘brings intensity, showcases Ibsen’s timelessness and also adapts the play’s moral arguments excellently for our times’ and described ‘an ending which is more equivocal and unsettling than Ibsen’s’. Time Out‘s Andrzej Lukowski (4★) also praised this ‘extremely droll’ production. His comment ‘The director chucks a lot of stylistic stuff in with more concern for impact than consistency’ may seem to be damning with faint praise but he likes the involvement of the audience (‘enormously provocative’) and the ‘deliciously punchy final third’. Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times (4★) said ‘the pacing feels a bit spongy at the outset and sometimes a lack of nuance grates’ but ‘the performances are great’. Sarah Crompton’s review at WhatsOnStage (4★) thought ‘The whole thing has a contemporaneity that makes it feel urgent, a tribute both to Ibsen’s prescience and to Ostermeier’s rigorous analysis of its relevance’ and loved the way ‘All of this is presented with the verve and energy of a rather wild sitcom, on a witty set by Jan Papplebaum’. Susannah Clapp in The Observer (4★) found it ‘a rousing evening’. Dominic Maxwell in The Sunday Times (4★) thought it showed ‘a good sense of humour’.

Matt Smith’s performance was well received. The Evening Standard said: ‘Smith’s performance is a nuanced, complex portrayal of a flawed man.’ The FT called it a ‘superb performance’. Whats On Stage observed an ‘edgy intensity’.

Average rating 3.3★

Value Rating 35 (Value rating is the Average critic rating divided by the most common Stalls/Circle 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 40 while an off-West End show may need to score above 60. This rating is based on opening night prices- theatres may raise or lower prices during the run.)

An Enemy Of The People is at the Duke Of York’s Theatre until 6 April 2024. Buy tickets directly from the theatre.

If you’ve seen An Enemy Of The People you are welcome to add your review and rating below (but we ask that you keep it relevant and polite)

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Peppa Pig’s Fun Day Out – review

Peppa Pig brings home the bacon

★★★

Peppa, George and Daisy (Perrie Sunuwar) in Peppa Pig’s FGun Day Out. Photo: Barry Rivett

Peppa Pig celebrates her 20th anniversary this year with a new stage show Peppa Pig’s Fun Day Out.

In the last two decades, challengers for her crown have come along in the form of Hey Duggee, Bluey and a production line of live shows based on Julia Donaldson’s perennially popular stories. So, is 20 year old Peppa the attraction she once was? I soon got my answer when I saw that three performances at The Mast in Southampton were all but sold out.

The first fans of Peppa may now be grown-ups and even have pre-school kids of their own but it seems there is still appeal in these simple tales of family life. But does Peppa live on stage still offer a fun outing for a preschool child?
The production company has done an excellent job is creating the look of the animated series seen on TV. Simon Scullion’s set is colourful and, important point this, doesn’t feel it’s been done on a budget, which small scale children’s shows often do.
The plot- and I use the word as loosely as a four year old ties their shoelaces- takes us on a visit to the zoo, and, after the interval, a trip to the seaside. The fun day culminates with a birthday party.
A small cast of familiar characters are on the outing- Peppa and little brother George, of course, as well as Danny Dog and Susie the Sheep. These are puppets manipulated by actors behind them, who also provide their voices. Amy Brooke‘s interpretation of Peppa is spot on.
There occasional appearances by Mummy and Daddy Pig, and Miss Rabbit, who are played by actors in costumes. Holding the show together is a human, Perrie Sunuwar as Daisy, who maintains a high energy and infectious enthusiasm as she conducts the action and the audience.
Richard Lewis and Matt Lewis’s script for Peppa Pig’s Fun Day Out crams in most of what you might hope for in a show aimed at young children: there are little puppet animals flying around at the end of sticks, fluorescent creatures  in the dark, and blue undulating cloths creating waves. There’s no mud which may be a disappointment to some Peppa fans but there is quite a bit of water spraying, to the extent the first few rows could be labelled a Splash Zone.
There’s plenty of participation in the form of songs, physical routines and verbal interaction, but this is an age group that’s still learning about socialising and joining in, so I would suggest that you gear your child up for copying Daisy.
The production directed by Richard Lewis moves quickly and there’s lots of activity but, at over an hour including interval, some children may get bored, because not much actually happens. You won’t be expecting the humour of Hey Duggee, the depth of Bluey or the poetry of Donaldson, but you might have hoped for a life lesson or some mild peril to engage those little brains.
Perhaps this is why it is advertised as being suitable for even the youngest child. I would disagree. I think any child under three will struggle with even as undemanding a stage show as this: the concept of theatre may be a puzzle to them, they may find it hard to concentrate, they may be frightened of the dark or of large numbers of people. I say: restrict the age to three and over and make the show a little more challenging.
That aside, Peppa Pig’s Fun Day Out is well done and offers a good introduction to the magic of theatre.
Peppa Pig’s Fun Day Out is touring the UK throughout 2024.  Click on the website peppapiglive.com for dates and links
Paul paid for his ticket.
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The House Of Bernada Alba – National Theatre – Review

Harriet Walter leads first rate cast in revitalised Lorca classic

★★★★

Rosalind Eleazar, Thusitha Jayasunde & Harriet Walter in The House of Bernarda Alba. Photo: Marc Brenner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This National Theatre production isn’t for everybody. If you’re familiar with The House of Bernada Alba by Federico Garcia Lorca, you’re going to have to put it out of your mind. Alice Birch‘s version is a devastating dissection of an authoritarian household and the malign influence of men. Rebecca Frecknall‘s production offers some of the finest acting you could hope to see, and not just from Harriet Walter. If the beginning is a little disjointed, messy even, the second half is theatre at its best.

Sometimes you enter an auditorium and the set is already laid out before you. Not on this occasion. Instead you wait for the Lyttelton safety curtain to open. When it does, it reveals Merle Hensel’s magnificent house, filling the giant stage from top to bottom and right to left. It’s on three storeys with seven separate bedrooms and a bathroom on the top two levels, and, thanks to transparent walls, you can see its full depth. So there is no escape, no privacy for the five daughters of Bernarda Alba, we even see one of them masturbating. And that’s very much the dominant theme of this production: Bernarda rules her daughters and believes she knows everything that’s going on.

The complete set including props is a pale green colour, except for a rifle sinisterly centre stage, which is the trigger- no pun intended- for the devastating end. The colour is not only the least distracting you could choose but it provides the starkest of contrasts to the black clothes of the women, whose husband and father has been buried that day. Bernarda declares eight years of mourning to the horror of her unmarried daughters.

 

The House of Bernarda Alba at the National Theatre. Photo: Marc Brenner

At first, as we get to know the household, there is much chatter and gossip from many women who have gathered after the funeral. Bernada says nothing but sits rigidly. She is a woman of few words. Harriet Walter gives a masterful performance in which less is more. She exhibits a cold stare, an imperious pose, and, when she does speak, it is without emotion. Bernada Alba has learned to survive in a man’s world by revealing no weakness.

The daughters are rebellious individuals but this is 1930s Spain and there is no escape for them. So, they are cowed by Bernarda and contain their thoughts, breaking out occasionally as when the oldest puts on makeup or the youngest a bright green dress. They are forbidden to fraternise with men, however Angustias, who is from Bernada’s first marriage, is the only daughter with money, which gives her an escape route. Her wealth has attracted a suitor, Pepe de Romans, and she is due to wed. Her fiance is an obsession of at least two of her sisters who both exhibit a dangerous jealousy. All the women are fearful of and fascinated by men generally, and Pepe in particular.

Spain in the 1930s was a patriarchal society. No doubt Lorca intended his audience to see parallels with an authoritarian society in which the people are forced into conformity, and this is why the play retains such power today. Bernarda Alba, like many in such a situation, does the job of the patriarchy for it by teaching, and expecting, her daughters to treat men with caution and respect.

She makes the house a female bastion against the male-dominated outside world, female but not feminist. ‘Men are capable of anything’ it is said, and there are hints, and more than hints, that men have and do behave despicably.
Her rule is cruel and dictatorial. Toward the end of act one, when one of her daughters does something wrong, the punishment is brutal and disproportionate. The first act ends with a shocking scene in which the house is invaded by a lynch mob chasing an ‘sinful’ young woman.

In Lorca’s original play, we never see Angustias’s fiance. In Alice Birch’s generally superb rewriting of the play, we see him silently moving across the stage in balletic manner. This underlines that he is a romantic fantasy, because we can see that in the flesh he is quite ordinary. Even so, I still prefer Lorca’s idea of him living in the imagination as an invisible presence hanging over the household.

As the play progresses to its tragic end, we see that Bernada is not as all-seeing as she thinks, and that her control is illusory.

The cast is uniformly brilliant. Angustias, the sickly and psychologically damaged eldest daughter, is played with layers of aloofness and vulnerability by Rosalind Eleazar. Isis Ainsworth provides an extraordinarily strong performance as the youngest sister Adela, in love with Pepe, defiant, and with emotions out of control. Lizzie Annis, Eliot Salt and Pearl Chanda are the other three sisters, also excellent. Eileen Nicholas is the senile grandmother who is locked in her bedroom. Thusita Jayasundera and Bryony Hannah are the servants who provide both honest comments and humour.

Rebecca Frecknall, after her recent successes directing Cabaret at The Playhouse and A Streetcar Named Desire at the Almeida, has triumphed again with this forceful production.

The House Of Bernarda Alba can be seen at the National Theatre until 6 January 2024

Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre.

Watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

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The Motive And The Cue – review

Mark Gatiss & Johnny Flynn astound as Gielgud & Burton


★★★★★

Mark Gatiss and Johnny Flynn in The Motive and the Cue. Photo: Mark Douet

If you love theatre, you will love The Motive And The Cue. It is not only about two legendary actors in rehearsal, thanks to playwright Jack Thorne’s ability to create drama, Sam Mendes ‘ direction and the acting of Mark Gatiss, Johnny Flynn and Tuppence Middleton, it is also as close to theatrical perfection as you can hope for. 

Back in 1964, the great classical actor Sir John Gielgud directed a production of Hamlet on Broadway starring the man who at the time was probably the most famous film actor in the world.

In The Motive And The Cue, the National Theatre production which has just opened in the West End at the Noel Coward Theatre, we follow them from the first day of rehearsal to the first night of the play.
This has to be one is the best plays ever written about the rehearsal process. Jack Thorne has talked about the way rehearsals are used to explore the text and find a way to the truth of the characters and situation. And truth is what art needs in order to succeed. As Gielgud points out in the play, the actor needs to share with the audience something they both can believe. To observe the process of how they get there is fascinating. 
It can be a disadvantage to use well known people and actual events, because we may think we know the characters and what happened and that may in turn get in the way of the play’s attempts to convince us of this particular interpretation of them.
So for a moment, let’s think of The Motive And The Cue as not about Gielgud and Burton, but simply about two people who clash because of their different approaches to acting but who learn to respect one another and work together to create a production that tells a truth about Hamlet.
So, the older man comes from an emotionally buttoned up generation, who at sixty is finding himself left behind by the new trend of ‘angry’ working class drama and actors,  like Burton. He values the verse which he speaks with a precise mellifluous voice, and, here’s the rub, is considered to have been the finest Hamlet in living memory.
The younger man is a great stage actor, potentially the greatest of his generation, thought by some to be the new Laurence Olivier, because of his rich voice and commanding muscular presence. He has become a Hollywood star but still yearns for success on stage. However his alcoholism and lack of discipline hold him back. The two are yin and tang.
Seen like that, it could be any clash between an older and younger generation, between a fading light and a bright young thing, between great past achievement and great future potential.
In this rehearsal process, we see Burton struggling to understand Hamlet. He sees the Prince as a man of action- not unlike himself- so cannot fathom why he dithers so. We see Gielgud offering many ideas or notes but unable to resist showing off his way of speaking the lines. And this is a most interesting aspect of the play- it says that the worst directors tell the actors what to do, while the best work with their actors to find the truth.
Burton initially reacts badly to this to-and-fro approach and, in moments of his worst behaviour, mocks the old thespian. Gielgud behaves with restraint but is a master of ironic comments: ‘Oh, you only wanted my opinion so you could disagree with it.’ When he does let go, he lets off the sharpest barbs.
Mark Gatiss and Johnny Flynn are both tremendous. Mr Gatiss speaks with a musical precision, he carries himself as the critic Kenneth Tynan said of Gielgud, like a furled umbrella. In fact, he is so convincing that it almost seems a shame for Mr Flynn, who otherwise would be the standout star of the show with his stabbing forceful vocals, his frenetic bonhomie, and his vicious bullying, all underpinned by emotional pain.
Tuppence Middleton is also splendid as Elizabeth Taylor combining vivaciousness and sexuality, with self deprecating humour and a down-to-earth quality.
The Motive And The Cue at the Noel Coward Theatre. Photo: Mark Douet

Es Devlin’s set follows the same principles of creating truth rather than imitation. The rehearsal room may not be totally naturalistic- there is less clutter but the brightly lit, airy space with no obvious ceiling suggests the truth of an openness where ideas can flow.

Similarly, the set for Burton and Taylor’s living room is not lavishly furnished, but a huge dark red wall convinces us that they live a life of luxury and decadence. The viewing aperture opens and closes in the rectangular shape of a proscenium arch, revealing and containing the sets but at other times closing them off, so that one or two actors are left alone at the front of the stage against a black backdrop for key moments of thought or conversation.
Hamlet of course is driven by his betrayed and dead father, so it’s hard not to see the relationship between the two men in The Motive And The Cue as that of a father and son, a love hate relationship in which they ultimately reconcile to release the Hamlet that is within Burton as they find the motive for Hamlet’s behaviour and the cue for releasing the passion of his performance.
This leads to Johnny Flynn performing a stupendous version of the ‘To be or not to be’ speech that, on the night I saw it, received a spontaneous and deserved round of applause.

How fitting it would be if Sam Mendes’ faultless production were to transfer to Broadway.

Originally seen at the National Theatre, this production has transferred to the Noel Coward Theatre in the West End of London (where Gielgud performed his own legendary Hamlet). It can be seen there until 23 March 2024
Paul was given a review ticket by the producers.
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Woody Harrelson and Andy Serkis in Ulster American – review

Harrelson, Serkis & Harland shine in Ireland satire

★★★★

Woody Harrelson, Louisa Harland and Andy Serkis group for a selfie in a scene from Ulster American at the Riverside Studios in London December 2023.
Woody Harrelson, Louisa Harland & Andy Serkis in Ulster American. Photo: Johan Persson/

A big name from Hollywood has come to London to star in a stage play. That’s the basic plot of Ulster American by David Ireland. However, it so happens that two big names from Hollywood really have come to London to star in this particular stage play. And how lucky we are to be able to see the wonderful Woody Harrelson and Andy Serkis on the Riverside Studios stage.

Mr Harrelson is the actor Jay and Mr Serkis plays Leigh, the director of the play. The two men are due to meet with the playwright the night before rehearsals begin. The venue is the director’s living room, a meticulous naturalistic set from Max Jones. They are playing a cat and mouse game, the rodent being Leigh. He thinks the coup of securing an Oscar-winning Hollywood actor will propel him to the artistic directorship of the National Theatre, so he doesn’t want to upset his star. Hence he pussy foots around Jay, panders to his outlandish opinions and eccentric behaviour.
All the while, Jay swaggers and poses and mansplains. Woody Harrelson is superb in this role. He has an easy film star smile and a physical dominance that especially manifests itself when he crouches in what could be a yoga position but makes him appear like an alpha male gorilla. He lopes like a menacing ape while Andy Serkis scuttles like a demented crab.
Jay is a caricature of the kind of actor whom stardom has turned into a spoilt child, and whose every whim and fancy is indulged. He is convinced the Bechdel test was invented by a man; he asks whether white people should ‘reclaim’ the N-word.
The most disturbing moment of this early encounter is when Jay asks Leigh who he would rape if forced to do so at gunpoint. It is shocking but amusing that Jay is so crass that he could even ask the question, but the funniest aspect is Andy Serkis’s reaction. His shocked expressions, squirming postures and desperate grabbing for a drink are a joy to watch.
Even so, is rape a subject for humour? You feel that, while David Ireland is exposing the hypocrisy of these two self-centered men who pretend to have feminist credentials in order to maintain their power, he is also jabbing his finger at us the audience as if to say why are you laughing at this?
He intends a parallel between these white males’ behaviour towards women and the British attitude to the Northern Irish, past and present. So, we the audience’s hypocrisy is being tested.
When Ruth the playwright arrives, tension is already high. And there are few directors as good Jeremy Herrin at signalling antagonistic feelings between characters, as we’ve seen recently in Best Of Enemies and A Mirror.
Played by Louisa Harland in a powerful performance, Ruth is thrilled her play has been chosen by this great actor. Her smile soon fades when she realises the true character of these men.
Straightaway , she reveals her steel when, despite her being introduced by Leigh as being Irish, she insists that, as someone from Northern Ireland, she is British.
Matters are made worse when the Irish American actor who thinks he will be playing a member of the IRA discovers that his character is a psychopathic Ulster Unionist who wants to kill catholics.
She will not change her script to accommodate him. Both men reveal their true colours as they abandon their previous pretension that they want to reveal artistic truth, by ignoring the truth of her play and trying to rewrite it.
Before long, verbal abuse becomes physical, and there is an hilarious chase around the room and through doors that reminds us of Jeremy Herrin’s skill as a director of farce that was seen in his production of Noises Off.
Some of the comedy dialogue is heavy handed, sometimes Woody Harrelson clowns a little too much, and the violent ending doesn’t have the smooth inevitability of a Martin McDonagh play, (which Ulster American resembles) but overall the effect is equivalent to a theatrical stun gun.
The message seems to be: ‘Don’t be surprised if your bad behaviour whether towards women, the Irish or anyone, comes back to poke you in the eye’.

The Ulster American can be seen At Riverside Studios intil 27 January 2024.

Paul received a review ticket from the producer.
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To Have And To Hold – Hampstead- review

Alun Armstrong stands out in new comedy

A scene from To Have And To Hold at Hampstead Theatre in November 2023
Marion Bailey, Chrtistopher Fulford and Alun Armstrong in To Have And To Hold. Photo: Marc Brenner

Richard Bean, writer of the incomparable One Man Two Guv’nors, has turned his attention to the challenges of old age in his new comedy To Have And To Hold. The focus is on the schism between working class parents and their educated middle class children. Something many of us have felt.

Yet despite the common experience and the pedigree of the writer, it lacks emotional impact. What it does offer are a lot of laughs and a superior comedy double act from Alun Armstrong and Marion Bailey.

Many of us baby boomers will be familiar with the situation To Have And To Hold describes. We were the first working class generation to go to university in large numbers, to aspire to middle class professions, and to leave our roots. Before finding ourselves with elderly parents in need of support.

I’m not saying younger generations won’t appreciate this play but I suspect it does not have the universality of some dramas about generational conflict.

Jack and Florence are on their last legs, literally in that they need a Stannah stairlift. This provides the first of many laughs, when Flo slowly descends to answer the front door. At the front door is their son Rob, who has come to try and sort out getting them into better accommodation. He is later joined by his sister Tina who has a particular interest in their health.

James Cotterill has designed a beautifully naturalistic living room that positively screams of old people who have lived there forever and haven’t changed anything in at least thirty years. The homely set also suggests, correctly, that we are nearer to the cosiness of a TV sitcom than the bleakness and remembrance of, say, Barney Norris’s Visitors, which covers similar ground.

Flo is getting by physically but she is showing signs of dementia. There is a running gag about her locking the front door and forgetting that she has the key in her apron. Jack is very ill but his brain is still sharp, so he can entertainingly recite lists of the names of pop stars and make barbed comments about being tied to Flo for seventy years.

And they bicker. They have a hilarious argument when she refers to the prostate as the prostrate and is unable to distinguish between the words. On another occasion, a convoluted question-and-answer bounces around like a pinball while which he tries to identify the name of a film director she can’t recall .

Flo has not yet lost the ability to launch some arrows of her own. When it is revealed that he has considered suicide and Switzerland is mentioned, she says she told him to go: ‘It’ll do you good. Broaden your horizons…you’ve never been abroad’. But there are many hints they are much closer than these exchanges would imply.

A comedy double act

Alun Armstrong and Marion Bailey are still in their seventies but are totally convincing as an elderly couple. Without them, the production would falter, because they are required to generate most of the laughs, and their timing is immaculate.

Christopher Fulford as Rob and Hermione Gulliford as Tina are fine actors but there is much less for them to get their teeth into. He is a successful crime writer, she an entrepreneur.  Both are geographically and culturally a long way from Yorkshire  and their parents. Their care seems more practical than emotional, their primary consideration seeming to be the price of everything.

Actors Marion Bailey and Alun Armstrong in a acene from the play To Have And To Hold at hampstead Theatre in November 2023
Marion Bailey and Alun Armstrong in To Have And To Hold. Photo: March Brenner

Jack recognises this and responds with a permanent scowl and his best grumpy Northerner mode- words like cantankerous and curmudgeonly spring to mind. It is significant that he is happy to tell stories of his time as a police officer but won’t let his son record them, because he suspects Rob only wants fodder for his novels. This also suggests that old people have lives worth remembering if only the next generation took the trouble to listen.

A neighbour Eddie and a cousin Pamela, nicely played by Adrian Hood and Rachel Dale, appear to offer more genuine support in a digital age that has passed Jack and Nancy by. They help with shopping from a supermarket that is more than a walk away, with banking that is only available online, and with health problems now that doctors don’t do home visits.

This leads to resentment and suspicion from the children. And, if that isn’t enough, there’s a subplot to do with someone conning Jack and Nancy out of their money.

It’s all very familiar, I’m sure, for many people of my generation. I myself know about living a life totally foreign to my parents. I have first hand experience of how difficult it is to care for parents when they are 200 miles away. I have seen my elderly father scammed out of thousands of pounds. I know how my mother-in-law’s doctor won’t do a home visit, even though she’s over 90.

So, I felt a lot of sympathy with all the main characters, but I never felt empathy, no real emotional involvement. This production is jointly directed by Richard Wilson and Terry Johnson. You couldn’t get two better people to extract the best out of a comedy. And it is a lot of fun, but Richard Bean never digs deep enough into the main characters’ feelings to bring out the pathos of a situation that so many people like Jack and Flo find themselves in.

To Have And To Hold is at Hampstead Theatre until 25 November 2023.
Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre.

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

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The Confessions at the National Theatre – review

Hi Alexander Zeldin reveals the extraordinary life of an ordinary woman

★★★★★

The Confessions at the National Theatre. Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage

What does a person’s life amount to? How much do we really know about what went on, or goes on, in someone else’s life, even if we’re friends or family. Alexander Zeldin who has written a series of successful plays about ordinary people based on interviews, this time has decided to find out about his mother’s life, on the surface another ordinary person. A life she told him and tells us that is not interesting. Not an encouraging opening line when you know you have two hours without an interval to sit through but it turns out to be blatantly untrue.

Because, and this is part of what writer and director Mr Zeldin is saying, everyone has a story worth telling, if you tell it right. Which is what he does as he picks out key episodes from his mother’s life that show what women had to cope with in the sexist, racist sixties and seventies, first in conservative Australia and then in ostensibly progressive Europe, and how, as they say, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

We first meet Alice as an older woman, played by Amelda Brown, standing in front of a red curtain. The curtain is drawn back and her story begins. Young Alice appears, acted by Eryn Jean Norvill. You can believe they are the same person at different stages of their life. Both have a ready smile and a vulnerability that make you empathise, as her creativity is suppressed by those around her: “You don’t need to set the bar at an unrealistic height for yourself,”says her first husband.

Also revealed is Marg Horwell’s clever set. It occupies a standard proscenium arch but, within that, there is smaller space , giving two areas for scenes to take place. Often we see the scenes changing, and how the set is constructed, as if all the memories are in the same space, in other words Alice’s mind.

The fact that it is patently a piece of theatre, from the set itself to the way the older Alice observes the younger one, sometimes smiling, sometimes distressed, enourages us to consider what is false memory, wishful thinking, interpretation, or just plain made up.  Alice and a friend even argue over what happened in a particular shared memory- one we have witnessed earlier. As her second and much nicer husband says: both memories can be true. So it is clear that we are being told a story, and indeed our memories are a story we tell ourselves.

It is, as people are fond of saying these days, Alice’s truth, or perhaps to be absolutely fair, Alexander Zeldin’s interpretation of her truth, and as such it speaks to our hearts. Even while theatricality reigns, we are convinced of the truth of what we are being shown, and this is partly because the conversations between people are totally natural. They talk over one another, falter, and fail to finish sentences.

Many of the men in her life attempt to bring her down. We also see from early on how women, from school friends to her mother to a right-on feminist, try to undermine her confidence. Like the men, in order to make them feel better about their own situation, they have to diminish others.

A truly shocking scene of sexual assault

Alice’s first husband Graham is pretty nasty, but the worst man she meets is Terry, an art historian. Graham is initially stiff and shy but eventually is revealed as possessive and rigid in his thinking. He insists against her objections on having sex to make a baby (“I’ll only take a few minutes” he says).

Terry is big headed and narcissistic. She gets the better of him in an argument about art and he regains his self respect by raping her. A scene that is played out behind a door in excruciating silence. A truly chilling moment. Followed by an extraordinary scene of retribution in which the older Alice gets him to strip naked. She too takes clothes off, then denies him sex, thus teaching him a humiliating lesson in consent. I imagine the reason it’s the older Alice doing this is because it’s what she wishes she had done at the time rather than what actually happened.

Eryn Jean Norvill in The Confessions. Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage

Both these brutal men are played by the same actor, Joe Bannister, who creates two very  different characters but shows us that they are cut from the same threadbare cloth.

Similarly, the two women who try most to eat away at her confidence – her mother and the feminist Eva – are both played by Pamela Rabe, again an impressive acting achievement in creating two contrasting but comparable characters, one passive aggressive, the other a larger-than-life bully.

The other actors are just as talented, often in multiple parts, and often making the same point about similarities. Jerry Killick plays two obnoxious men, a neighbour Eldon and a lecturer Joss. Brian Lipson is Alice’s caring but ineffective father and her kindly but nervous companion Jacob.

Yasser Zadeh plays various sincere, emotional young men including her friend Leigh. Lilit Lesser as Pat, a naval officer, shows that men don’t have a monopoly on racism, militarism or immorality. Gabrielle Scawthorn is Alice’s friend Susie who swaps one restricted life for another.

A quick word of praise for the lighting by Paule Constable: the house lights stay up for the whole show but there are many subtle changes of mood. And Yannis Philippakis provides dramatic sonorous music.

In the end, you are uplifted by Alice’s ability to survive what her mother called a world full of hard surfaces, thanks to her resilience and self belief. There is a fantastic moment, when the smaller arch turns around completely and she steps through it like Pierrot in the painting by Watteau that she so admires.

When her son played by Lilit Lesser, who could be the author, eventually arrives on the stage and is revealed as a rude, angry teenager, we have proof that children don’t know their parents and only see them from their selfish point of view, unless they take the trouble to find out more, as the brilliant Alexander Zeldin has, in this extraordinary story of an ordinary life.

The Confessions can be seen at The National Theatre until 4 November 2023 and then at Comédie de Genève (8-12 November), Théâtre de Liège (15-18 November) and Comédie de la Clermont (22-24 November).

Paul paid for his own ticket.

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The Inquiry – Minerva – review

New political play by Guardian writer lacks drama

★★

John Heffernan, a male actor, stands in front of Deborah Findlay, a female actor, and leans forward to make a point, in the play The Inquiry at Chichestre's Minerva Theatre
Deborah Findlay & John Heffernan in The Inquiry. Photo: Manuel Harlan

I’ve probably been to and enjoyed more plays at Chichester Festival Theatres than anywhere else except the National Theatre. Unfortunately, The Inquiry at The Minerva wasn’t one of them.

The finale of Chichester’s 2023 season is Harry Davies’ theatrical debut and, no question, he is a promising playwright. Indeed there are signs that he has the potential to be another James Graham. I even suspect that, with more work, this play could take off but, at the moment, it’s still on the runway.

Before I report on my inquiry into what went wrong with The Inquiry, let me describe the subject of the play. Public Inquiries were established to answer the need for independent investigations into major incidents, as opposed to the previous practice of governments scrutinising their own wrongdoing. Harry Davies questions just how independent they are.
The subject of this particular Inquiry is a mass poisoning involving a water company. We join it at the stage known as ‘Maxwellisation’, a word I’d never come across before, but which is the term used for the moment when an Inquiry’s draft report is passed to those criticised, for comment and possible correction of facts.
The Justice Minister, who is also Lord Chancellor and an aspiring Prime Minister, has been chastised in the report for his actions whilst Environment Minister. He is dragging his feet in providing his response. To spice things up, someone is leaking confidential information about the report. The minister and his cohort are convinced it must be the Inquiry chair’s team. They plan a counterattack through the media to undermine the inquiry.
You might imagine this is the stuff of gripping drama. It’s not. Apparently, the Inquiry has so far taken four years, and the first act, in which the groundwork is laid for the second act, at some moments felt like it was going to last as long.
The complexities of public inquiries and political intrigues have the potential to be interesting, but only if the characters are meaty. The problem with The Inquiry is that they’re all rather more vegetable than red-blooded.
John Heffernan plays Arthur Gill, the minister under siege. Soft spoken with a ready smile and a flippant approach to serious questions, he is never likely to be accused of being a bully, or arrogant or even ambitious, despite having his eyes on the prime ministerial prize. Mr Heffernan brings colour to the role but he’s working from a pastel palette.
His assistant Helen played by Stephanie Street and his civil servant-cum-just-plain-servant Donna, played by Macy Nyman, are scarcely less pleasant.
Over on the opposing team, Lady Justice Deborah Wingate who chairs the Inquiry is just as quietly spoken, reasonable and smiley. You do get a sense of the steel she would need to employ in her position, but Deborah Findlay’s portrayal emphasises the niceness. No less nice is her right-hand man Jonathan Hayden KC, a charming fixer played by Nicholas Rowe.
Oh, and there’s Arthur Gill’s fixer, his old mentor, Lord Patrick Thorncliffe, who ‘knows’ people and shows at least a hint of ruthlessness behind his smooth exterior. Malcolm Sinclair is appropriately patrician in the role.

Not enough variety in the characters

Mr Davies writes decent, flowing dialogue but his characters all have the same way of speaking, and they’re all ever so polite. It’s as if they all went to the same public school, the same university and belong to the same club. Imagine you bought a Kellogg’s variety pack, and found they were all cornflakes. At one point, Arthur and Deborah even compare memories of their barrister days.
Now, Harry Davies might be making a point that those who run our government and judicial system are all part of an elite club, who know one another and have more in common with each other than they do with the rest of us. But, in a drama, we need characters to have characteristics that will amuse us and annoy us, but, most of all, make us believe their story.
Take David Cameron and Boris Johnson. They have almost identical educational backgrounds but very different characters. The people in The Inquiry seem to have no distinguishing features. When it comes to vanilla, they rival Madagascar.
John Heffernan, Stephanie Street and Malcolm Sinclair who are three actors in the play The Inquiry at The Minerva Theatre in Chichester, are grouped around a table
John Heffernan, Stephanie Street & Malcolm Sinclair in The Inquiry. Photo: Manuel Harlan

I don’t mean The Inquiry should be like The Thick Of It but it would help if the combatants had some distinguishing mannerisms, verbal habits, or, heaven forbid, volatility. For goodness sake, these are politicians and barristers, professions full of actors manqués, people who deliberately adopt a persona for effect. It not only undermines the drama than none of them possess a ready wit, a line in sarcasm, a short fuse, or even a twitch, it takes away credibility.

The set designed by Max Jones reflects this: a background of a large rectangle of oak against a larger rectangle of marble, a leather-topped desk on a green carpet on a polished wooden floor. What could be more solid, more neutral- and more boring? This would be highly effective, if only it were in contrast to the characters squabbling on this stage.
Thank goodness for the quality of acting and Joanna Bowman’s direction, which breathed some life into the story.
There are moments within the play when you wake up and take notice. Each act features an ongoing interview between Arthur and a friendly journalist, Elyse. She’s not exactly Jeremy Paxman but she does get beneath his skin, and enables him to reveal more about himself than we might otherwise have learned. It’s a part played with zest by Shazia Nichols.
And I did like the way the play was full of misdirections, admittedly some more clever than others, before it gets to its big question: whether these two powerful people- the minister and the judge- will put their personal feelings or their ambition first.
Everything leads to the one-on-one confrontation, as he tries to force her into resignation and she steadfastly stands her ground. This provides some real drama, as an amiable irresistible force meets a mild-mannered immovable object. It’s a scene of revelations and one major twist. However, that twist is so implausible that when Dame Deborah said, ‘I find that hard to believe’, I found myself nodding: ‘You and me both, my Lady.’

I wondered for a moment whether I’d got the time frame wrong but the play is clearly set in the present day or thereabouts. Both have secrets that could have been scandals in a play from the early 1950s, maybe by Terence Rattigan whose style this drama resembles, but today? I wasn’t convinced. 
Even if The Inquiry doesn’t quite deliver the goods, I hope to see more from Harry Davies.
The Inquiry can be seen at The Minerva until 11 November 2023
Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre
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The Ocean At The End Of The Lane – review

Neil Gaiman’s fantasy story is adapted into a theatrical spectacle with a heart

★★★★★
Keir Ogilvy, Millie Hikasa & Kemi-Bo Jacobs in The Ocean At THe End Of The Lane. Photo: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg

Maybe, like me, you’ve never got around to seeing The Ocean At The End Of The Lane. Yes, it has been around a while. It opened at the National Theatre in 2019, then Covid intervened. Then it was revived and a tour throughout this year has finally seen it wash up at the Noel Coward Theatre in the West End. There have been plenty of opportunities, so what’s your excuse?

Let me give you mine. It’s a children’s show, or even if it’s not, it’s a fantasy, or even if it is rooted in real life, it’s all spectacle and no heart. Well, I’ve finally seen it, and I can tell you, none of these excuses hold up.
The Ocean At The End Of The Lane is a stage adaptation of a novel by Neil Gaiman.  The idea of bringing this story to the stage came from a true theatre person: Katy Rudd. She knows theatre, she loves theatre and she knows how to make a magical show.
I’ve got to be careful here because the word ‘magical’ is loaded. There is a whole literary genre known as magical realism, wherein an ostensibly real world has unnatural things going on. Then there’s the magic that is more properly called ‘tricks’, which theatre is full of. Then again, there is the magic of theatre that involves no tricks but somehow transports you into another world.
All these forms of magic combine in this production.
The story concerns a child. So is it a children’s show? Well, older children will probably enjoy it, but the answer is emphatically ‘no’. It’s very much about how we as adults lose our ability to see beyond the world in front of us and enter into the world of imagination.
We meet a particular adult who is reminded of something that happened to him as a child- or may have happened. Cut to an unhappy 12 year old, already regarded as weird because he seems to prefer books to people, who has gone through the trauma of losing his mother. Keir Ogilvy is magnificent in this part, a stuttering, gangling, wide-eyed performance.
He meets a strange girl called Lettie, a Peter Pan like character played with energy and passion by Millie Hikasa. He also gets acquainted with her mother and grandmother, who seem to know things well beyond the time and space they occupy.
Thus begins a fantastic adventure that takes place on their farm and in his house.
So, yes, it is fantasy but not Star Wars or Marvel Universe fantasy. This is the everyday world you and I might occupy, suddenly host to strange goings on.
Like a monster from another parallel world being let in ours and wreaking havoc. And what a monster. Guaranteed to send chills down your spine. Until it is personified in the form of a sinister lodger- Ursula, played by Charlie Brooks, with mad eyes and a steely smile). Then the battle begins.
The stage is filled with the kind of spectacle, that is far more impressive than cinema CGI because it is being created before your eyes with smoke and coloured lights and swirling cloths and people in costumes.

There is no better moment of stage

Three actors, namely Laurie Ogden, Charlie Brooks and Trevor Fox, sit round a kitchen table in the stage play The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Laurie Ogden, Charlie Brooks and Trevor Fox in The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Photo: Pamela Raith

magic than when Ursula disappears through a door stage right and instantly reappears through another door stage left. Then more and more doors appear with Ursula appearing here there and everywhere until your brain is overwhelmed. Members of the audience were gasping with astonishment. 

And in this eulogy to theatre, we are shown how some of the magic works- we see the ensemble of ‘stage hands’ who carry characters through the air when they are flying, falling or swimming; or moments when a scene ends and the stage hands move in to remove scenery only to find the characters decide to carry on talking, so they pause and replace the props. We see the mechanics, but still imagine it to be ‘real’. I use the word advisedly since, as this play reminds us, your perception of reality, present and past, will be different to mine.
The point is, like all art forms, theatre stimulates our imagination, then requires our imagination in order for it to work. And, as this story underlines, imagination is what enables us to see the truth about the world and how to change it,
If it were purely to enjoy the magic of theatre, I would recommend seeing this show. But there is more, much more, and that’s in the power of the storytelling. The boy regularly quotes from The Chronicles Of Narnia but also Alice In Wonderland and Peter Pan.
Like many great stories, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane engages the heart as it takes us into the world of this lonely young misfit. It leaves us simultaneously uplifted and sad.
It is irrelevant whether the events really happened or were invented as a way of coping with an unfriendly world. The story of threatening monsters, benevolent witches, and a faithful friend is grippingly real for him, as it is for us.
Neil Gaiman is one of the great storytellers, and all praise to Joel Horwood too for adapting the story into two and bit hours of character-driven adventure.
The other actors deserve recognition. Trevor Fox, who plays the boy’s father and the boy as an adult, is as funny, melancholy and eccentric as adults so often are in children’s eyes. Laurie Ogden is suitably annoying and obnoxious as the boy’s sister. Kemi-Bo Jacobs is Lettie’s gentle, loving mother. Finty Williams makes her grandmother seem as old as the hills but has a glint in her eyes that show she is as sharp as a brand new knife.
While I’m giving credits, I must praise- or more properly bow down to- set designer Fly Davis, Costume and Puppet Designer Samuel Wyer, Lighting designer Paule Constable, and Magic and illusions director Jamie Harrison.

So, even if you normally shun shows about children, or flee from fantasy fiction, or sidestep spectacle, I urge you to make an exception and go to the Noel Coward Theatre to see this 5 star show about the power of storytelling.

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A View From The Bridge – Headlong – review

Headlong’s version of Arthur Miller’s classic is well acted but over egged

★★★

Jonathan Slinger & Katy Bushell in A View From The Bridge. Photo: The Other Richard

A View from The Bridge is a modern classic. Rooted in ancient Greek tragedy, it was written by Arthur Miller, a man who has a claim to be the greatest playwright of the twentieth century.

When you produce a new version of a classic play, inevitably some of your audience will have memories of previous productions. In Britain, Alan Ayckbourn’s 1987 National Theatre production with the great Michael Gambon and Ivo Von Hove’s 2014 Young Vic production starring Mark Strong both loom large as benchmarks. They may be hard acts to follow, but theatre demands new productions. Of course, you can watch a film of the Young Vic production, but a stage play is designed to be a unique nightly collaboration between actors and us the audience.

So I looked forward to Headlong’s production, which has been co-produced with Chichester Festival Theatre, Octagon Theatre Bolton, and the Rose Theatre. Thanks to the accomplished well-directed cast, Headlong’s A View From The Bridge is worth seeing, but, in an over egged production, the director doesn’t allow the play to speak for itself.

Let’s start with a brief summary of the plot. Eddie Carbone is a longshoreman or dock worker in New York. He lives in an Italian American community, just below the Brooklyn Bridge. And Miller tells us that title refers to us- the middle class audience with our modern outlook- observing from the bridge this normally out-of-sight working class community rooted in a more ancient culture.

Eddie and his wife Beatrice have brought up her dead sister’s daughter Catherine who has now arrived at that moment when a child becomes an adult. (It’s around 1950, so we must accept that kids grew up more slowly in those days.) Eddie still sees her as the little girl he needs to protect but that feeling is now coloured by an unacknowledged sexual attraction.

Then two of Bea’s cousins arrive from Italy. The brothers are illegal immigrants, what we might call today economic migrants who have escaped the poverty, in Rodolpho’s case to become an American citizen, in Marco’s case to earn money to support his family.

Things start to go wrong when Catherine and Rodolpho fall in love. Eddie is jealous but hides this by implying that Rodolpho is really gay and is tricking Catherine into marrying him in order to gain US citizenship. Eddie’s inner conflict and how this inarticulate working class man deals with it is the core of the tragedy of this play.

The cast are uniformly excellent and Holly Race Roughan’s production gives them the space to savour the language of the play. Jonathan Slinger as Eddie brings out the frustration, ignorance and anger required in the role, as he swaggers, slumps, stares and rages.

Rachelle Diedericks as Catherine starts naïve, barely recognising her own sexual power. She matures until by the end of the play she is confident enough to shout down Eddie. It’s a subtle blossoming that marks Ms Diedericks as an actor to watch out for.

Eddie’s conduct is appalling and it’s hard to feel sympathy for him but he presents a challenge for Catherine and Beatrice, who both love him, and are in many ways the play’s ultimate victims.

Bea is possibly the most interesting character. She clearly envies Catherine and encourages her to take advantage of opportunities she never had. Kirsty Bushell imbues Bea with an inner strength and confidence which give her a power over Eddie, and for much of the play she is able to subdue his more extreme behaviour.  She is frustrated by Eddie’s lack of sexual interest in her and her constant revealing of her legs can be taken as a sign of her own active sexuality.

Why is Eddie not interested in her? It is not simply that he is distracted by Catherine. The text hints that he may have, again uncoinscious, homosexual leanings, which adds another layer to this complex play. Maybe Eddie is even attracted to Rodolpho.

It’s possible that Arthur Miller would have developed this more, if he’d written the play today, but this production decides to do the job for him by featuring a fantasy male ballet dancer performing homoerotically in front of Eddie. I don’t know why Holly Race Roughan, who us s talented director, felt we needed this aspect of the play marked with a fluorescent pen. Just as earlier, when we first see Catherine, she is on a children’s swing, a prop that seems to clutter the stage and serve no purpose except to underline her adolescence. It’s as if the director doesn’t trust the text to make the point without underlining it.

The Headlong production of A View From The Bridge

As for Rodolpho,  Luke Newberry plays him as artistic, sensitive and passionate, but without any obvious sign of him being gay. Like the modern American he aspires to be, Rodolpho sees the value in the virtues of compromise and forgiveness.

By contrast, his brother Marco, in a beautifully restrained performance by Tommy Sim’aan, is strong and silent except for the moment when he dramatically takes centre stage to show Eddie who is the alpha male.

The conflict between the rule of law and the code of the Italian community is another major theme. And Eddie’s self-inflicted downfall comes from his breach of the code, and his recourse to the law. This makes the part of the lawyer Alfieri pivotal in raising questions about the limits of the law in providing justice, particularly in a community which in the past has sorted out its own forms of justice. Nancy Crane takes on this role, possibly the first time a woman has played the part. She is authoritative and sympathetic, in a way appropriate to someone who is also a narrator-cum-Greek chorus, a role designed to remind us that we are outsiders viewing the unfolding tragedy.

The austere set by Moi Tran comprises a claustrophobic shiny black wall and stage, with an oppressive neon sign saying Red Hook, the name of the neighbourhood, that might have looked good in an art gallery but was over the top for this family drama. A staircase and high walkway are a further indication of how low this family are. The main props are a number of wooden chairs. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time to make the chairs double as the heavy bales the longshoremen carry, but it didn’t really work.

I regret I have one more criticism to make of the directing. During the final moving final tableau, a very large member of the cast stands at the front of the stage, blocking the view of a significant part of the audience. This is frankly unforgivable.

Having got that off my chest, let me say that, generally, Holly Race Roughan has put together a decent version of A View From The Bridge. It has light and shade, variations of pace, and dollops of tension. But, if the creative team had done less, they could have achieved more.

A View From The Bridge opened at Octagon Theatre Bolton on 8 September 2023. It can be seen at Chichester Festival Theatre until  28 October and at Rose Theatre from 31 October to 11 November 2023.

Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre.

Watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

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