Category: London Productions

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Theatre review: Unicorn with Nicola Walker, Stephen Mangan & Erin Doherty

Two plus one equals a challenging comedy


★★★★

Stephen Mangan, Nicola Walker & Erin Doherty in Unicorn. Photo: Marc Brenner

Unicorn is about a middle-aged couple played by Nicola Walker and Stephen Mangan who are attracted to the idea of introducing a third person into their relationship- in the form of a younger woman played by Erin Doherty.

This makes it a difficult play to review. Not because of some of the language- although that’s a problem too- but because so much of the play is about whether they will or won’t go ahead. I’ll do my best to talk about this adventurous comedy without giving away any spoilers.

Here are some things I can tell you about Unicorn. It’s funny, although the light-heartedness does give way to something deeper in the second half. I can also tell you it’s about emotional relationships rather than a simple threesome (if indeed a threesome is ever simple). And, even if it is about more than physical gratification, there is nevertheless much frank- and indeed filthy- talk about sex.

Having said that, if you were hoping to see these beloved stars in the buff, or were perhaps dreading the embarrassment of seeing bits of them that are normally covered up, there are no depictions of sex. They don’t even undress, well, Nicola Walker does take her shoes off. Frankly, it’s shocking enough to hear Nicola Walker and Stephen Mangan talking about sex in explicit four letter words- yes, even that word- without them actually doing it.

Our middle-aged couple still say they love one another but wonder if a third person might spice things up their sex life. Fortunately Polly, played by Nicola Walker at her most hesitant and nervously sensual, is a lecturer, and one of her mature but much younger than her students has the hots for her. And she feels the same.

Normally, if that’s the right word in this unusual situation, it’s difficult to find a young woman who wants a relationship with an older couple. (I’m not saying this from personal experience- it’s what we’re told in the play.) As rare as a unicorn, in fact. But fortunately, Kate, played by Erin Doherty, is interested, and so the story begins. The very word ‘unicorn’ may suggest a fantasy but we go with it because this is a scintillating script by Mike Bartlett, and these three actors, under James Macdonald’s direction, know exactly what to do with it.  Their comic timing is exquisite.

Erin Doherty nails the younger woman: frank, matter-of-fact and with a clear picture of what she wants. She talks loud and without hesitation. The generational gap is portrayed well. Stephen Mangan as Nick is especially good as an older man tying himself in knots as he tries to contain what he fears is stereotypical masculinity. He and Nicola Walker capture that respectful tone of the woke London middle class who are aware they shouldn’t offend or take risks, so beat about the bush and constantly retreat from what they really want.  ‘It’s entirely possible that on some level this is inappropriate,’ says Polly to Kate. Even when they kiss, all three contain any passion they might feel in favour of conversation.

So we journey through the first half continuing a will-they-won’t-they situation. At this point, I think I can add something to my plot summary. It might be a spoiler but I doubt you imagine this prevarication, funny as it is, could possibly continue for over two hours. In the second half, they do get together, but only after some significant turning points in all their lives.  We find that 30 year old Kate is increasingly the driving force in the potential three-way relationship, and we realise why. She comes to represent not only hope for the throuple but also a wider hope for humanity.

Nicola Walker & Erin Doherty in Unicorn. Photo: Marc Brenner

As we move into the dynamics of the menage-a-trois, and its ups and downs (no innuendo intended), the humour subsides a little in favour of more philosophical conversations. To summarise: we live in dangerous times, when the world and our bodies are threatened by pollution. We’re brought up on Disney happy-ever-after movies and bicycles made for two. So our primary choice of heteronormative coupling is tied up with this failed society. A willingness to try new, honest ways of living and loving could be the path to happiness and a better world.

It’s clear from the start that this particular arrangement is so rare that it is close to a fairy tale, a fairy tale that even features a unicorn. Then again,  children’s fairy tales are a way of tackling the challenges offered by a world that can seem dark and forbidding. I don’t want to say whether their happiness ultimately comes from their being all together or working out different kinds of relationships, but I certainly came out of the theatre feeling upbeat about the world.

Miriam Buether’s set is half of a dome, the other half being in effect the fourth wall. It occasionally concertinas up at the back to allow an entrance. The impression is that the three are contained within a cocoon, thus adding to the feeling that they are in a fantasy world. The backdrop is bathed in different colours, and sometimes Natasha Chivers‘ lighting design casts multiple shadows. I’m not sure if that’s to indicate the multiple possibilities of modern relationships or more mundanely to make the image of two or three people on stage more visually stimulating. There are few props- chairs or a sofa to sit on, a bed to lie on. Refreshingly, both designer and director take a discreet approach that lets the actors to do their job.

I certainly wouldn’t go see Unicorn if you’re hoping for an erotic evening, but if you take it as a fantasy delve into changing attitudes to relationships, then it’s both interesting and funny. If nothing else, it will get you talking, and who knows what that might lead to.

Unicorn can be seen at the Garrick Theatre until 26 April 2025.

Paul paid for his ticket.

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

 

 

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Theatre review: The Years at The Harold Pinter Theatre

Top class acting makes ordinary life extraordinary


★★★★

Anjli Mohindra, Deborah Findlay, Gina Mckee, Romola Garai & Harmony-Rose Bremner in The Years. Photo: Helen Murray

The Years was originally a book by a Nobel Prize winning French woman Annie Ernaux. It was adapted by a Norwegian woman Eline Arbo who directed it while working with a Dutch company. She has now brought the production to London in an English translation by Stephanie Bain. There were moments when I wondered whether the story of an ordinary life was worth all that pan European effort, but in the end it was the acting that sold it to me.

All the actors have familiar faces. Deborah Findlay, Gina McKee and Romola Garai have appeared regularly on stage and screen for decades. Anjli Mohindra and Harmony Rose-Bremner are young, up-and-coming actors who are already building big reputations.
All have the same ability to convey characters through the subtlest of gestures and expressions, and to communicate with confidence when they are centre stage. These are qualities essential to performing in this play, where the actors play the same person at different stages of her life, and the rest of the time take on the multiple other characters who are part of the story.
Harmony Rose-Bremner is Annie as a child fascinated by the family around her. Then Anjli Mohindra takes over as the joyous adolescent discovering, among other things, masturbation. And I must say I have never seen such an enthusiastic depiction of the act on stage.
In the other half of her life, as the middle-aged Annie, Gina McKee, with her trademark knowing smile, observes a new generation of adults and has the maturity to enjoy her own life more- especially the sex. Then in old age, Deborah Findlay takes over as the actual storyteller, looking at the present and all that has happened with a benign smile. If anyone could be said to take the honours in this masterclass of acting, it would be Romola Garai who takes on the mantle of the fresh young adult, learning about the harsh realities of relationships.
And it is quite an epic, taking a provincial French woman from childhood to old age. But what happens to her isn’t exceptional, with the important exception that the lives of ordinary women are rarely told on stage or anywhere else for that matter.
It gains much of its force from being told against the background of the second half of the twentieth century. In other words, it becomes a celebatory story of Women in our time or, depending on our age, the time of our parents and grandparents. So we run through post-Second World War austerity to the growth of consumerism, 1960s rebellion, the sexual liberation encouraged by the Pill, the triumph of free market capitalism, the beginning of a new millennium and 9/11. Lists of brand names and new consumer devices like the Walkman form a motif throughout the play.
The woman is first seen as a young girl, the youngest in the family, and ends up a grandmother, the oldest. In the course of the play, she discovers her sexuality, has non-consensual sex, an unwanted pregnancy, babies, a divorce, more pleasurable sex, copes with teenage children, and becomes an empty nester. The exploration of a life from it all being ahead to being behind is fascinating, and salutary. Annie describes how the memories ‘will all vanish at the same time, like the millions of images that lay behind the foreheads of the grandparents, dead for half a century, and of the parents, also dead…And one day we’ll appear in our children’s memories, among their grandchildren and people not yet born.’
Some of the events are upsetting, such as a harrowing illegal abortion (the play was stopped the night I was there because a member of the audience fainted, which I gather is not unusual), some are funny as when they all join in doing stretches with varying degrees of success as part of a Jane Fonda style fitness session.
But, in itself, this is not enough. Not because it’s about a woman but because  a cushioned middle-class life is just not that interesting. It can be: even the most ordinary life has conflicts, challenges, threats, difficult relationships. But in this story, such things are deliberately played down. The alienating way of telling this trip of a lifetime, in which an actor describes what’s going on even as it happens, and with the characters around her almost anonymous, anaesthetises us from the dramas of her life.

The trip of a lifetime

Where we all gain, male and female, is in the story of time itself, and the way our memories remain with us, making the past always present. This is reinforced by all five incarnations, in the form of the actors, remaining on stage throughout. Another motif concerns the taking of photographs that hold one moment in time for a lifetime and beyond.
The story might still seem a trifling thing but for the performances and the creative elements of the production. The actors are all at the top of their game. They wear roughly the same costumes throughout and have few props but, because they speak with passion and mime so convincingly, we believe they are schoolchildren, disco dancing, naked in the bedroom, and so on.
In Juul Dekker’s sparse set, white cloths that represent the background to the photos, are rolled up to act as a baby or become a tablecloth, and end up, having been stained by wine, blood and other fluids of life, hanging as the backcloths to the life we have witnessed. Then, there’s the music. Harmony Rose-Bremner and Romola Garai sing beautifully and add extra depth to the moods of joy and sadness.
I don’t think the play carries the weight it aspires to, but the acting more than makes up for that.

The Years can be seen at the Harold Pinter Theatre from 24 January until 24 April 2025.  Buy tickets direct from the theatre.

Paul was given a review ticket by the producer

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

Click here for a roundup of reviews of The Years

If you’ve seen The Years at the Harold Pinter or the Almeida Theatre, please add your review and rating below

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Reviews Roundup: Brie Larson in Elektra

Another Greek tragedy for a Hollywood star

DUKE OF YORK’S THEATRE
Brie Larson in Elektra. Photo: Helen Murray

Another day, another Hollywood star in a Sophocles tragedy given a major overhaul by a dynamic young director. And if you thought the critics’ average rating of 2.9★ for Rami Malek in Oedipus, wait until you get to the bottom of this roundup to see what they collectively thought of Brie Larson in Elektra. Daniel Fish, whose dark reinterpretation of Oklahoma! had plenty of fans, went full weird in the opinion of many of the reviewers. Brie Larson hid her acting talent beneath a lot of shouting and loud speakers. Only Stockard Channing emerged unscathed.

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

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (4★) continued to be a fan of Hollywood stars in extreme interpretations of Sophocles’ classics. Having been one of the few critics to give Rami Malek’s Oedipus four stars, she duplicated her rating but this time was a lonely voice.  Here’s part of her commendation: ‘Part spoken, part sung through in recitative and partly shouted in fury, this is a lyrical, avant garde creation, like a long lamentation, bare in its staging and emotions.’ ‘The anger is never shrill or flatly pitched – her delivery captures not only anger but also grief, resembling Hamlet when at her most melancholy. It is a magnetic performance, fearless for a West End debut.’

Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (3★) found  ‘the production, full of strangeness and insight, feels half-baked, as if all its elements haven’t quite had time to gel. It simultaneously compels attention and frustrates it.’ She described how ‘Lines are spoken out rather than to one another, formalised and ritualistic rather than naturalistic…The effect is to turn the piece into an abstract meditation rather than drama, a gloss on Elektra not the thing itself. I rather loved it, but it never quite becomes the sum of its parts.’

Olivia Rook for LondonTheatre (3★) described Brie Larson thus: ‘her detached, reflective performance style makes it difficult to feel a connection with her character. Her voice is deliberately flat, which often jars, particularly when she is reunited with her brother and her reaction is borderline emotionless.’

Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski (3★) said, ‘The biggest problem for me was the use of Anne Carson’s poetic but starchy 2001 verse adaptation – there is some mordant wit in there but I’m not convinced the formality of the verse helped the drama.’

‘It’s haunting, punchily feminist and perverse, all at once’ said Alice Saville in The Independent  (3★). She continued: ‘this staging is full of a mesmerising but near-stagnant stillness’ She concluded, ‘It’s a fascinating experiment, one that’s beautiful, but ultimately impenetrable.’

Tim Bano in The Standard honed his sarcasm: ‘It’s not entirely clear if it was Elektra, or an exercise in alienation. A 75-minute test as to whether an audience can keep an open mind.’ He skewered the director: ‘It’s directed (boy is it directed) by the experimental American director Daniel Fish…(he) doesn’t let a single line go un-weirded.’ He ended, ‘“Let me go mad in my own way,” Larson cries – and that’s the whole show, really. Always baffling, never boring, and completely mad in its own way.’ No stars given, which may be intentional, but I’ve put it down as 2★.

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe (2★) was damning: ‘It is so self-consciously stylised, so artful and so devoid of any genuine sense of humanity in extremis that it’s more likely to provoke a yawn or a weary eye roll than pity or terror. You sense that it’s straining for austere elegance and intellectual heft; it comes off simply as sterile and insufferably pretentious.’ Matt Wolf for The Arts Desk (2★) said, ‘The hipster vibe might seem to invite us all to this pathological party only to leave us on the threshold awaiting some way in.’

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish (2★) wasn’t impressed: ‘what gets confused swiftly is where our attention should fall. The problem of over-emphasis is redoubled by Larson’s jolting, forceful delivery into a microphone, sometimes with added distortion and with an almost tic-like need to amplify and draw out every use of the word “no”.’ He wasn’t entirely negative: ‘The laurels go to Stockard Channing (Greece is the word…), giving us a Clytemnestra of stately bearing and stirring defensiveness and lending the pivotal mother-daughter battle an urgency, danger and truthfulness.’

The Times’ Clive Davis (2) recalled happier times at the theatre: ‘Some shows you walk home from humming the songs or cooing at the acting. After Elektra, which gives us Brie Larson as a punk princess agitating against something rotten in the state of ancient Argos like some shaven-haired proto-Hamlet, you go home still boggling at the misguided avant-gardery of it all.’ His last words offered an olive branch to the star: ‘Larson is clearly a gifted, authoritative performer. But she is hemmed into a concept that makes her Elektra only a raging bore.’

Describing it as a ‘droning dud’, Broadway World’s Alexander Cohen (1★) had many questions: ‘Why is there a dangling blimp? Why is there a paint canon sporadically spritzing the chorus? Why does Larson wail atonally like a brat-like banshee into a microphone without any momentum to propel her? It took about three minutes for me to realise that it’s not meant to make sense. This is theatre where the #vibe rules supreme.’

Critics’ Average Rating 2.5★

Value Rating 31 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Elektra continues at the Duke of York’s Theatre until 12 April 2025. Buy direct from the theatre

If you’ve seen Elektra at the Duke of York;’s Theatre, please add your review and rating below

 

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Reviews Roundup- Oedipus with Rami Malek & Indira Varma

Rami Malek’s performance is a tragedy

old vic
Rami Malek and Indira Varma in Oedipus. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Two new versions of Sophocles’ Oedipus went head-to-head either side of Christmas- Robert Icke‘s which starred Mark Strong and Lesley Manville versus this newly opened production at the Old Vic starring Rami Malek and Indira Varma. We have a winner, and it wasn’t the one featuring Freddie Mercury. Hardly any critic actually liked Malek’s style of acting and there was little praise for the adaptation by Ella Hickson. There were contrasting opinions about the production in which co-director Matthew Warchus conceded time and space to the loud sound and frantic choreography of Heofesh Schecter. It was, you might say, a Marmite decision. Only co-star Indira Varma was universally liked by the critics.

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

For a change, I’m going to present the reviews in reverse order of enthusiasm for the show. The most critical came from Claire Allfree in the Telegraph (2★). She began ‘The question of whether Rami Malek can actually act has always hung over this most idiosyncratic of performers.’ Her answer? ‘ Malek is almost entirely at sea with Oedipus, his curious tic-ridden delivery strangling almost every word at birth.’ He was, she said, ‘like an unholy blend of Trump at his most disingenuous and Biden at his most incoherent.’ She doesn’t stop there: ‘his relationship with Varma, who outclasses everyone on stage, is consistently jarring…it resembles a confused arrangement between two people of almost entirely different species’.’One has to wonder,’ she pondered, ‘if the craze for celebrity casting has this week reached its nadir.’

The i-paper‘s Fiona Mountford (2★) thought ‘Malek speaks in a strange drawl that suggests he has toothache’ and described him as ‘all adrift in a bewilderingly centrifugal production’. She wasn’t keen on the use of dance either, saying it was ‘undoubtedly powerful and emotive, but the trouble with these lengthy, wordless episodes is that they fatally disrupt the momentum of what should be the undiluted hurtle of Sophocles’ storytelling’.

Alice Saville in The Independent (2★) was no more enamoured: ‘Ultimately this Oedipus is one for contemporary dance fans…theatre lovers hoping for a coherent take on this often-told story should seek elsewhere.’ ‘It’s gorgeous to look at,’ she said,  ‘but there’s more tension in a single chorus member’s bent finger than in its whole slack plot.’

Clive Davis in The Times (3★) was barely more enthusiastic but he did find an extra star. The text, he suggested, ‘For long stretches, in fact, sounds more like the work of an AI programme commissioned to generate soap opera chat laced with the sort of noirish boilerplate that would sit nicely in a Tarantino film.’ For him, Rami Malek gave a ‘curiously stilted central performance…his rigid facial expressions evoking all those socialite millionaires who’ve gone in for a few too many injections of Botox.’ Having praised the sound, dance, set and lighting, he damned it with faint praise: ‘We can’t help being drawn into a harsh, elemental world. If only it had a more charismatic presence at its centre.’

Dave Fargnoli for The Stage (3★) began, ‘Bursting with bold visuals and angsty, unsubtle performances, this ambitious, often incoherent take on Sophocles’ classic myth puts style firmly ahead of substance’ but in the end he managed to winkle out some substance: ‘Indira Varma gives a consummate, focused performance as Jocasta, grounding the production with heartfelt naturalism.’

‘The opening is dazzling,’ said Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (3★). Unfortunately, ‘it can’t sustain the intensity it promises. By the end, there’s not much catharsis and without that, there’s not much tragedy.’ She pointed out that Malek’s ‘lack of emotion is emphasised by a script that chooses to offer an unusually tentative ending rather than searing revelation and despair.’

The Mail‘s Patrick Marmion (3★) found that Rami Malek’s ‘inward looking method acting is not well suited to ritualistic staging that’s meant to evoke Greek religious cults from antiquity’. He also berated ‘Ella Hickson’s wooden adaptation’.

Inevitably there were unfavourable comparisons with the recently closed Oedipus directed by Robert Icke. Take this from Tim Bano in The Standard (3★): ‘Where Icke’s was all sleekness and surgical precision, this one…takes Aristotle’s unities and rubs them in the old philosopher’s face. Why have unity when you can have the mad and slightly ridiculous chaos of several different creative visions squeezed into 100 minutes?’ He explained in more detail: ‘Hickson’s doing one thing, Warchus another, Schechter a third, Malek something else besides, possibly on another planet.’ Talking of the Hollywood Oscar winner: ‘Sinister and expressionless, he delivers every line in a strangely mannered way, and every word sounds like one long vowel.’

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar (4★) was one of the few genuinely enthusiastic reviewers. She liked the dance and the loud music and even Rami Malek’s performance: ‘He brings outsider vibes to Oedipus – speaking in an elusive American drawl, adopting the mantle of leadership like a haunted robot.’

Perhaps most impressed was Alexander Cohen for BroadwayWorld (4★). He was immediately taken by ‘a frenetic whirlwind of theatre and dance …that returns the power back to the people’ (i.e. the Greek chorus). As for Rami Malek: ‘It takes time to acclimatise to his slinky weirdness and syrupy southern drawl. But Oedipus is supposed to be an outsider welcomed in, the tendrils of his otherness bleeding deep into his paranoid psyche. Ella Hickson’s wily adaptation hints at scathing insecurity bubbling beneath his calm demeanour which Malek subtly preys upon in his angular mannerisms.’

Critics’ average rating: 2.9★

Value Rating 34 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Oedipus can be seen at the Old Vic Theatre until 29 March. Buy tickets direct form the theatre.

If you’ve seen Oedipus at the Old Vic Theatre, please add your review and rating below

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Reviews Roundup- Inside No 9: Stage/Fright

Is TV spin-off frightening or frightful?

wyndham’s theatre
Steve Pemberton & Reece Shearsmith in Inside No 9: Stage/Fright

Inside No 9 ran for a highly successful nine (of course) series. The spin-off stage show is clearly one for the fans but it embraces the medium of theatre, according to the critics. Some of them found it inventive and frightening, others thought it was funny but not that original.

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

‘It isn’t to be missed’ declared a besotted Katelyn Mensah for Radio Times (5★). And in case you missed the message, she ended her review ‘it’s a thrilling ride that shouldn’t be missed.’

For Dominic Cavendish of the Telegraph (4★) was more measured: ‘this is an evening that tallies the need to give us a good laugh and a valuable fright – encapsulating their relish for the absurd and macabre – with reflections on mortality and loss.’

For The Guardian (4★), Brian Logan called it ‘a slickly produced spooky wheeze, distinguished by Shearsmith and Pemberton’s clearly personal obsession with the double-act dynamic and old-school entertainment, and with theatres and their ghosts.’

‘There’s a lot that’s absurdly funny, as well as one sequence that is genuinely hair-raising. Meanwhile a deeper, more moving thread works through the piece about the interplay between acting, memory and haunting,’ said Sarah Hemming in The Financial Times (4★).

The i-paper’s Culture Editor Sarah Carson (4★) took on reviewing duties for this show, calling it ‘riotously fun’ and ‘raucously entertaining’. She praised ‘ writing and wordplay that is so clever and quick that it is impossible not to miss every reference.’ Not sure that’s what she meant to say but you get the message.

‘It’s not radical, or even as ground-breaking as the television shows which have spawned it. But it is great, all-encompassing fun,’ said Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (4★).

Annabel Nugent for The Independent (4★) said, ‘if nothing else, this is one play you won’t be checking your watch in. Tonight, on stage, the spirit of Inside No 9 is alive and kicking.’

Anya Ryan from LondonTheatre (3★) seemed like she was hoping for more originality, nevertheless: ‘Recycled gags? Tick. An element of surprise? Tick. And the cherished pair giving it their everything? Oh absolutely.’

The Stage’s Sam Marlowe (3★) said, ‘It’s a show in need of a stronger sense of purpose and identity: it’s not quite funny, emotionally involving or frightening enough, even though it has flickers of all those elements.’

Nick Curtis of The Standard (3★) called it ‘a mix of the intelligent and the obvious – part smart reinvention and part lazy cash-in.’ Patrick Marmion had a similar reaction in the Mail (3★): ‘The show has a distinct feeling of using up the comedians’ off-cuts, out-takes and left-overs for the amusement of themselves and their fervid fan-base. ‘

At the start of 2025, it seemed that The Times’ Clive Davis (2★) had made a New Year resolution to be nicer to the shows but, if he did, he hasn’t stuck to it. In his latest outing, he reverted to the hard-to-please, sting-like-a-scorpion critic that we know and love. In a review was more frightening than the show, he warned, ‘Prepare to be underwhelmed… by this laboured set of ghoulish sketches’

Critics’ average rating 3.6★

Value Rating 42 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Inside No 9: Stage/Fright is at Wyndham’s Theatre until 5 April 2025. Click here to buy tickets direct.

If you’ve seen Inside No 9 at the Wyndham’s Theatre, please add your review and rating below

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Reviews Roundup: The Good House

Royal Court Theatre

Satire on race and class is fun

Two couples, one standing, one seated, are talking in a scene from a play
The Good House at the Royal Court

David Byrne‘s first season as Artistic Director of the Royal Court continues to impress. His latest offering is Amy Jephta‘s play is set in South Africa where a middle-aged white couple enlist wealthy black neighbours whom they’ve previously ignored to improve the effectiveness of their bid to remove an unauthorised shack in their enclave. The critics mostly liked it but were split between those who thought it was ‘perceptive provocative fun’ and those who thought it didn’t quite convince.

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

Arifa Akbar in The Guardian (4★) found it was a play with layers: ‘Do they want to be insiders at all or remain wilful outsiders, keeping a connection to the imaginary invaders in the shack – and their own past geographies? How does being on the “inside” compromise the integrity of their identity politics, as well? The layers to this line of questioning are what gives this play its depth.’

Dave Fargnoli in The Stage (4★) liked the way the director Nancy ‘Medina takes a methodical approach, allowing conflict to escalate gradually, the debates eventually descending into rapid-fire shouting matches. This allows for some brilliantly judged comic timing, as the residents twist themselves into exquisitely awkward knots, trying to mask their toxic entitlement with hollow civility.’

The Times‘ Clive Davis (4★) began ‘this quirky domestic drama sends you home with awkward questions buzzing around in your head.’ He was happy that ‘there’s an intensity to all the performances that keeps agitprop at bay. Jephta’s mischievous portrait of life in  a far-away country has a universal flavour.’

WhatsOnStage‘s Sarah Crompton (4★) called it ‘fast-moving and very funny, puncturing assumptions and attitudes with swift and searing observation’. The Standard‘s Nick Curtis (4★) said, ‘This isn’t perfect but it’s perceptive, provoking fun.’

Aleks Sierz at TheArtsDesk (3★) said it was ‘perceptive and provocative, but it’s also an imperfect mix of styles and topics.’ While calling it ‘a worthy exploration of prejudice and privilege’, Holly O’Mahony at LondonTheatre (3★) decided, ‘this play, with its cracking premise, still has room to grow.’

Alexander Cohen at Broadway World (2★) was disappointed, describing it as ‘A case of never being more than the sum of its parts, even if those parts have promise in themselves.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.5★

The Good House can be seen at the Royal Court Theatre until 8 February 2025.  Buy tickets direct from the theatre.

If you’ve seen The Years at the Royal Court Theatre, please add your review and rating below

 

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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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