Category: London Productions

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Michael Sheen in Nye – review

Michael Sheen’s titanic tribute to founder of NHS

★★★★★
A scene from Nye at the National Theatre London in which actor Michael Sheen is lying on a hospital bed with actors Roger Evans and Sharon Small standing either side of him
Roger Evans, Michael Sheen and Sharon Small in Nye. Photo: Johan Persson

A man is dying in a hospital bed. He is flanked by his wife and his oldest friend. Heavily sedated with pain killing morphine, his brain takes him back to significant episodes in his life. And what a life. Because this Aneurin Bevan known as Nye who spearheaded the foundation of the National Health Service.

In the course of the evening, while we do learn something about how the service came into being, much more to the point we discover why it was so important to this man and what made him into one of the Labour Party’s most powerful figures.
Playwright Tim Price’s concept is superb. For the entire play, Nye is on stage in his pyjamas and often in his hospital bed. This may remind you of Dennis Potter’s TV drama The Singing Detective, and there is even a sequence in which Nye sings Get Happy to the backing of a brass band. Whatever the inspiration, it’s a highly effective device.
It may be fair to say that, because of the constant presence of Nye, the production would not succeed without an actor of exceptional brilliance in the role. Fortunately, in Michael Sheen, it has one. He never overplays the part, tempting as it must be when portraying one of the twentieth century’s great orators. Nye himself may have had a huge ego, he may have been disloyal, and these characteristics are hinted at, but what we are given by Michael Sheen is a man scared by his present condition and wondering desperately whether his life has been worthwhile. It is a magnetic and moving performance.
A scene from Nye at the National Theatre in London in which Michael Sheen in pyjamas with a book in his hand is being held up by other cast members
Michael Sheen and the cast of Nye. Photo: Johan Persson

Vicki Mortimer’s clever set uses green hospital-style curtains to open to reveal a whole ward of beds, and close to provide the intimacy of a single room. The beds and curtains also move around to create a schoolroom, the House of Commons, a library, the local council chamber and a parliamentary tea room. A low ceiling from which hang the lights emphasises depth and human scale. The lighting designed by Paule Constable enhances each scene: flat fluorescent for the ward, green laser for the coal face, and so on.

So, we encounter Nye bullied by a teacher because his stammer, and receiving solidarity from his friends including his lifelong friend Archie Lush, given a solid portrayal by Roger Evans, and it’s he who helps him overcome his stammer by introducing him to the miners’ free library where he learns alternatives that avoid the traps of words beginning with ‘s’. And of course, it’s his wide vocabulary that helps him become one of the great orators of his time.
We see how he organises the mine workers in his home town Tredegar. How he was a lone and unpopular voice opposing that other great orator WinstonChurchill during World War Two. Tony Jayawardena giving a very amusing version of the wartime leader as a charming persuader, symbolically dancing light on his feet.
In the post-War Labour government, Nye becomes Health Minister and forces through the National Health Service against considerable opposition both from within his own party (a egocentric patronising Herbert Morrisson is played by Jon Furlong) and from the doctors. He sues tactics learned from his youth, his brief time in the mines and his time in local politics, as well his power of persuasion. Although in the end the doctors are brought round by throwing a lot of money at them. The use of a stark black-and-white video created by Jon Driscoll is hugely effective. First it shows the myriad challenges facing the new universal health service and overwhelming Nye, especially when people step out of the screen to tell their personal story. Then it shows the faces of the doctors harsh, greedy and recalcitrant.
On a personal front, we learn how his poetry-loving mineworker father who died from coal dust in the lungs influenced him. And how he met and wooed his wife and fellow MP Jenny Lee. Sharon Small is wonderful as the far left feminist, sharp of mind and tongue.

A worthy swansong for Rufus Norris

There are elements of a history lesson, but ultimately this is the story of a man and his mission. It is told with humour and compassion. Director Rufus Norris, in his last production as Artistic Director of the National Theatre, uses the stage to the full, creating a feel that is both epic and intimate. There are complex scenes choreographed by Steven Hogget and Jess Williams, there are small moments of passion and poignancy.
Now, you can say, as some critics have, that the other characters have little depth, and that may be true but this is a play about Nye Bevan. You may even say that it is not a full picture of him or the full story of the formation of the NHS. That may also be true, but why expect it to be something that it doesn’t claim to be? What we are given are the episodes that stand out in a life as remembered by a dying man.
When death finally arrives, he asks plaintively: ‘Did I look after everyone?’ It is a moment that brought tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat, and I was not alone. Tears for the loss of someone who we have come to care about, and maybe also for a health service that was started with such high ideals.
Nye is at the National Theatre until 11 May, after which it will transfer to Wales Millennium Centre from 18 May to 1 June. There will also be a National Theatre Live broadcast in cinemas from 23 April.
Coincidentally on the same day as I saw Nye, I also watched The Human Body at the Donmar Warehouse in which Keeley Hawes as a local GP and Labour politician is involved in ushering in the NHS at local level while having a Brief Encounter-ish affair with a film star played by Jack Davenport. If you’d like to know what I thought of it, click here.
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Keeley Hawes in The Human Body – review

Keeley Hawes and Jack Davenport rise above a messy play

★★★
Actors Keeley Hawes and Jack Davenport hold each other with a camera operator in the backgound in a scene from stage play The Human Body by Lucy Kirkwood at the Donmar Warehouse
Keeley Hawes and Jack Davenport in The Human Body. Photo: Marc Brenner

The Human Body at the Donmar Warehouse in London tells the story of a middle-aged love affair to the background of the birth of the NHS.

Lucy Kirkwood‘s inspiration is Brief Encounter and other British films of the immediate postwar era that looked at women in a changing society. To hammer the point home, there are multiple occasions in the production when the action is videoed and shown on the back wall as a black-and-white film. Video has been used quite a bit in theatre productions recently, notably in Ivo von Hove‘s  A Little Life and The Picture of Dorian Gray, but Ivo von Hove this isn’t. For me, the filming was a distraction, not a reinforcement, made worse, much worse, by having cameras and camera operators on stage, getting in the way, and killing the moment.
Maybe Lucy Kirkwood and the directors Michael Longhurst and Ann  Lee meant us to be alienated so that, rather get too tied up in the love story, we could observe from a distance the parallels between the revolution in health care and women’s desire to abandon pre-war traditional behaviour.
The argument for universal health care is strongly made, the case for an affair between a rising politician and a fading movie star more uncertain. She rarely goes to the cinema and he is disinterested in politics, albeit able to quote Charlie Chaplin’s inspiring anti-fascist speech from The Great Dictator. Perhaps part of the attraction lies in each being outside the other’s world.
There is certainly a physical attraction between the two- the dice are definitely loaded by having them played by Keeley Hawes and Jack Davenport–  and they do have in common that both are unhappy in their marriages, but, as in Brief Encounter, good old fashioned guilt and duty threaten to pull them apart. The echoes of the film are many but with some crucial changes. She, not he, is the GP. Both have greater reasons than a simple morality to stick with their spouses. And the sense of guilt and duty, in her case, extends beyond her family to take in the Party and her patients. The physical consummation of their affair is more satisfactory, shall we say, than in Brief Encounter.
Lucy Kirkwood’s dialogue is touching, heartfelt and funny and it’s an absorbing ‘will she, won’t she’ story. Ben and Max Ringham‘s score works well, sounding more like the tense background to a 1940s thriller than the stirring Rachmaninov piano notes of Brief Encounter. If only the production was as fast or exciting as the music.
Keeley Hawes plays a multi-tasking modern woman, not only a GP and would-be Labour MP, but also a wife and mother. Her husband has been disabled when fighting in the war. So, whether to save her marriage is just one of many choices she has to make. This makes the story more interesting as well as giving Ms Hawes many opportunities to display a middle-class stiff upper lip hiding a volcano of emotions.   Often, when containing her feelings, she adopts a tight smile, but when she laughs, it’s as if an extra light shines on the stage. Her speech in favour of the new socialism and an end to Victorian values was so passionate, it actually received a round of applause from the audience. At all times, she commands the stage.
Admittedly, she is probably too glamorous for the ordinary woman she is meant to be. In fact, there is an unintentional moment of humour when her husband says ‘I hate your body’. There were audible intakes of breath from some people in the audience on the night I was there, as if they couldn’t believe anyone would reject the immaculate Keeley Hawes.

Top Class Cast

Tom Goodman-Hill, Siobhan Redmond & Pearl Mackie in The Human Body. Photo: Mar Brenner

All the actors are top class. Jack Davenport was full of self deprecating charm as a gone-to-seed film star. Siobhan Redmond, Pearl Mackie and Tom Goodman-Hill excel in multiple parts. Thank goodness, because they save the evening.

I can’t help feeling this play was not designed for the Donmar. Fly Davis‘ mainly dark blue set design with a revolve creates a sense of the monochrome austerity of the late 1940s and, with the audience on three sides, she wisely keeps the props to a minimum. However, unless you sit in the centre block of seats, your view of the high-up screen will inevitably be partially obscured. Much more detrimental than this, though, are the many scene changes which should have been fast moving and fluid but are slowed down by mobile props- tables, chairs and so on- being trundled on and off the empty stage via the aisles in the auditorium. Worse than the time this consumed in an already overlong play is the distracting noise of the wheels and of technicians whispering into headsets.
Earlier in the day, across the river at the National, I had seen Nye, the epic story of the Labour politician who was the driving force behind the creation of the NHS. The Human Body might have been a counterpoint, offering a microcosm about the creation of the health service at a local level. Instead, while strands of the story do offer insights into the struggles within the Labour Party, and the resistance of the medical profession and the need for free healthcare, these are not the focal point. However, along with the other distractions, they are enough to take the focus away from the conflicted love affair.
The Human Body is at Donmar Warehouse, London, until 13 April. Click here to buy tickets directly from the theatre.
Paul paid for his ticket
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Richard Hawley & Chris Bush’s Standing At The Sky’s Edge – Gillian Lynne Theatre – Review

‎Sheffield high-rise musical hits the heights


★★★★

Standing At The Sky’s Edge. Photo: Brinkhoff Moegenburg

With a book written by Chris Bush and music by Richard Hawley, both born in Sheffield, and direction by Robert Hastie, who is the Artistic Director of the city’s Crucible theatre where it began life, Standing At The Sky’s Edge is Made In Sheffield, just as much as the steel for which the city was famous. Yet it has a universal appeal, as shown by its the National Theatre and now to the West End.

Starting in 1961 and spanning nearly sixty years, the musical tells the story of three families who at separate times live in a high-rise flat in the huge Sheffield housing estate called Park Hill. Their narratives later intersect but initially it seems like a portrait of three discrete times adding up to a history of modern Britain. There’s the socialist optimism following the second world war; the decimation of industrial Britain and the destruction of working-class communities during the Thatcher years (Act One concludes with a shocking riot to the tune of There’s A Storm A-Coming); and today’s liberal-minded but materialistic services economy. I assume Chris Bush leans to the left but she wears her socialism lightly.

They all have their histories, their tragedies, and most of all their love stories. A neon sign says ‘I love you Will u marry me’ replicating the real sign on the flats which itself was based on a famous piece of graffiti.

The main interest is in characters who try to make the best of their situations, even if some fall through the cracks. Her dialogue flows as smoothly as the River Sheaf.

The musical begins with a traditional British working-class couple moving in, thrilled to have all mod cons. Rachael Wooding as Rose is excellent as she goes from excited young wife to strong partner when her husband loses his job following the steelworks closures and to a weary acceptance when life often doesn’t work out as expected, exemplified in her heart breaking rendition of After The Rain. Her husband Harry, played by Joel Harper-Jackson, makes a journey too, starting as a confident provider, then falling apart as so many proud working-class men did without a job to give meaning to their lives.

Next, as the estate becomes run down, we see the arrival of immigrant refugees.  Joy has been brought by her aunt and uncle from Liberia to the safety of Sheffield. Played by   Elizabeth Ayodele, she undergoes a transformation as she rebels against the values of the old country and adopts the culture of Sheffield, including a change in accent.

Finally, we meet Poppy, perhaps the one with whom we will feel the most in common. She’s a marketing person from London who has headed north to get over a broken relationship. Although she has the least dramatic story, mainly relying on jokes about today’s middle class lifestyle, it’s hard not to be touched by Laura Pitt-Pulford as she conveys Poppy’s desire to be part of a community.  Lauryn Redding as her desperate ex belts out a rousing version of Open Up Your Door.

Laura Pitt-Pulford, Elizabeth Ayodele and Rachael Wooding in Standing at the Sky’s Edge. Photo: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg.

Chris Bush’s witty, angry and moving script finds parallels in the different eras, so that all three families eventually appear on the stage at the same time, their conversations overlapping. It’s a real sense of how a building retains its history and a way to see how much ostensibly different people can have in common. It reminded me of some of Alan Aykbourn’s experiments in presenting more than one narrative simultaneously on stage. The disadvantage of this approach is that it’s harder to become involved with individual stories.

The selection of Richard Hawley’s poetic songs creates an impressive soundtrack for a rock musical but there is plenty of variation in style. A blistering bluesy version of the title number opens Act Two.  The many excellent songs, angry, poignant or passionate, augment what’s happening on stage and are wonderfully performed but inevitably they seem too often as if they have been tacked on to the story rather than integral to it, like the blistering bluesy version of the title number that opens Act Two.

Robert Hastie moves these various narratives deftly around the set and at tiumes has the whoile cast of over thirty players interweaving on stage. Lynn Page’s clever choreography at times had the cast moving in a rhythmical walking motion and swaying embraces, uniting different times, generations and classes.

Ben Stone’s set is magnificent, filling the stage with a three storey section of a building with the features of a Park Hill high rise. The main action takes place on a basic but sufficient representation of a flat while the upper two floors are occupied by a large band. The flat apparently offers a glorious view of Sheffield but for us it is down-to-earth.

Standing at the Sky’s Edge is an excellent musical that not only has much to say but says it from the heart. It deserves a long life in the West End.

Standing At Sky’s Edge continues at Gillian Lynne Theatre until 3 August 2024.

Click here to buy tickets directly.

Paul was given a review ticket by the producer.

Click here to watch this review on YouTube

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Reviews Round-Up: Standing At The in Sky’s Edge 4.3★

Gillian Lynne Theatre

Standing At The Sky’s Edge. Photo: Brinkhoff Moegenburg

The superlatives have been brought out, dusted and polished once again for Standing At The Sky’s Edge, the musical about three generations of residents in Sheffield’s Park Hill Estate, which has now transferred to the West End. Directed by Robert Hastie, Chris Bush’s book augmented by Richard Hawley’s songs and performed by an impressive cast has captured the hearts of nearly all the critics.

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

Stefan Kyriazis in the Daily Express 5★ repeated his previously expressed view that ‘this is the greatest new British musical for years.’  ‘Chris Bush’s note-perfect script tugs at heartstrings as much as it tickles funny bones,’ he said, and ‘Hawley’s exquisite compositions through the years are more like living poetry.’ As if that weren’t enough, he adds: ‘The entire cast is superb’. ‘Prepare to fall in love’ said Franco Milazzo in BroadwayWorld (5★) ‘Robert Hastie’s direction earns every laugh and tear ‘ he enthused, calling the show ‘an epic musical for (and about) the ages’.
Calling it ‘unmissable’, Alex Wood at Whats On Stage (5★)said: ‘It stands as a shining tribute to the combined power of both popular music and stage storytelling, and subsidised and commercial theatre.’
Caroline McGinn in Time Out (5★) was ‘blown away by the emotional power of this show’, dubbing it ‘an instant classic’. She picked out the female leads for special mention: ‘Rachael Wooding, Laura Pitt-Pulford and Elizabeth Ayodele and especially Lauryn Redding will break your heart with lungs of steel’. She summed up: ‘joy, lust, fear, sadness, despair, are crafted into an emotional edifice which stands nearly as tall as the place that inspired it.’
Dominic Cavendish in the Daily Telegraph (4★) praised Richard Hawley’s beautiful songs full of melancholy, tenderness, warmth and yearning, hammering at the door of your heart, demanding to be let in.’ He concluded: ‘It’s hard to feel anything other than enriched and often deeply moved by it. It offers rare intellectual and emotional ambition, songs that should stay with you, and sustain you, over a lifetime; and frankly deserves to be a huge hit.’ Dominic Maxwell in The Sunday Times (4⭐️) said: ‘it adds up to something special. I was more than happy to spend almost three hours letting Standing at the Sky’s Edge work its tender magic on me.’
Dave Fargnoli in The Stage (3★) was less carried away but still found it ‘a bittersweet, multigenerational epic’ in which ‘the big ensemble numbers … carry the production along.’ It was left to Clive Davis in The Times (3★) to bring the high-rise enthusiasm down to earth: ‘the script sometimes resembles a conscientiously assembled checklist of social issues’ the songs ‘sometimes seem to have been inserted into the action almost at random’
Standing At Sky’s Edge continues at Gillian Lynne Theatre until 3 August 2024.

Click here to buy tickets directly.

Average rating: 4.3★

Value Rating 51  (Value rating is the Average critic rating divided by the most common Stalls/Circle ticket price on a Saturday evening. In theory, this means the higher the score the better value but, because of price variations, a West End show could be excellent value if it scores above 30 while an off-West End show may need to score above 60. This rating is based on opening night prices- theatres may raise or lower prices during the run.)

Read Paul Seven’s review 

If you’ve seen Standing at the Sky’s Edge, you are welcome to add your review and rating (but please keep it relevant and polite)

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Reviews round-up: Hadestown 3.6★

Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London

Grace Hodgett-Young and Donal Finn in Hadestown. Photo: Marc Brenner

Hadestown is an American sung-through musical version of the Greek myth about Orpheus’ attempt to rescue his late wife and love of his life Eurydice from the Underworld (i.e. Hell) with Persephone’s story added to the mix. Written by Anais Mitchell, it began its life 18 years ago as a community project in Vermont and was presented at the National Theatre in 2018 before scooping 8 Tony Awards on Broadway.

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

Clive Davis in The Times (5★), possibly our most parsimonious critic when it comes to handing out stars, gave Hadestown top marks, saying it’s ‘a reminder of what musical theatre can achieve when it sets its sights beyond the lowest common denominator. ‘ He loved the band: ‘a glorious noise’; he loved the singers ‘Grace Hodgett-Young’s voice has a raw northern edge…Gloria Onitiri is a thunderous, sexy Persephone.’ He concluded that Orpheus and Eurydice’s  ‘final ill-starred journey still touches the heart.’

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar (4★) may have held back a star but she still enthused: ‘This is one of the best West End musicals around.’ ‘Every scene becomes a set piece: big, beautiful and emotionally blasting,’ she said in her review.  Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (4★) was similarly smitten: ‘the most exhilarating ride. That band, with its bluesy trombone and folksy guitar is consistently thrilling, the songs are vibrant and smart, the sung-through text is compelling..(Rachel) Chavkin’s direction is direct and impassioned.’ Her only reservation was, ‘the material just doesn’t quite coalesce into the ending I long for.’ Time Out‘s Andrzej Lukowski (4★) was particularly taken by the music: ‘It is essentially a staged concert, but it’s done with such pulsing musical intensity, physical dynamism and heft of meaning that it never feels like one..It’s a musical of beautiful texture and tone.. Mitchell has penned some flat-out brilliant songs.’ Marainka Swann at londontheatre.co.uk (4★) enjoyed ‘the quiet power of this singular show, which demonstrates the magic of a shared story, and how such a collective effort can change the world, is undeniable. This spellbinding West End production was well worth the wait.’ Fiona Mountford in the i (4★) talked about being ‘wooed by the hazy, dazy atmosphere of this splendidly sultry show’. Cindy Marcolina at Broadway World (4★) called the singers: ‘an exciting team who carry the intensity and high-stake energy of the tale with precise delivery’ and described Grace Hodgett-Young’s performance as Eurydice as ‘astounding’.

Dominic Cavendish in the Daily Telegraph (3★) couldn’t summon quite the same level of enthusiasm: ‘Yes, it can feel like one damned song after another. But it washes over you like a steam bath.’ He praised ‘the rich attention to detail in costuming, choreography, lighting and ensemble flamboyance’ and noted that ‘Donal Finn’s Orpheus can hit heavenly high notes.’ The Stage‘s Sam Marlowe (3★) just about managed to contain her excitement: ‘An uneven, unsatisfying creation, it is light on plot, heavy on pretentious portent – yet it’s fitfully seductive, with Mitchell’s New Orleans jazz-inflected score and Rachel Chavkin’s fever dream of a production both oozing spicy flavour. And the electrifying energy and knockout vocals of the cast come close to blasting away objections.’ The Observer‘s Susannah Clapp (3★) suggested ‘Rachel Chavkin’s production nudges the musical world along but does not remake it.’

It was left to Nick Curtis in the Evening Standard (2★) to sound a sour note: ‘The writer-composer’s score is catchy and eclectic but often bombastic, her lyrics pretentious or nonsensical…the endless reprises start to drag and, oh dear, the words within and in between the songs can be dire’

David Neumann’s choreography was widely but not universally praised: ‘energetic yet precise’ (WhatsOnStage), ‘ethereal’ (Times), ‘pneumatic’ (Time Out).

Hadestown at Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, is booking until 9 Fbruary 2025. Buy tickets directly here.

Average Rating 3.6★

Value Rating 40 (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 30 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.)

If you’ve seen Hadestown, please add your review and rating below (but we ask you keep it relevant and polite)

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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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Reviews Round-up: Dear Octopus 3.7★

National Theatre (Lyttelton)

Lindsay Duncan in Dear Octopus.Photo: March Brenner

After many years of neglect, Dodie Smith‘s 1938 play Dear Octopus gets a revival at the National Theatre. The critics were charmed by its gentle story of a family through the years but some found it unexciting.

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

Kate Kellaway in The Observer (4★) called it ‘a tip-top, fastidious, perfectly pitched production’. The Guardian‘s Kate Wyver (4★) thought it a ‘glorious revival’. Dave Fargnoli in The Stage (4 ★) described it as ‘a touching celebration of enduring love, family and forgiveness.’ Marianka Swain of The Daily Telegraph (4★) found the ‘sensitive revival’ ‘poignant, exquisitely performed theatre’. Although Tim Bano in The Independent (4★) thinks it’s ‘a slightly soppy, unfashionable play’, he found it ‘a pretty great pleasure to spend time in the company of this family’. The Financial Times‘ Sarah Hemming (4★) said ‘(director Emily) Burns’ delicately acted staging coaxes you to fall for this fretful, funny bunch and gently draws out the melancholy notes beneath the comedy’. In her Whats On Stage (4★) review, Lucinda Everett said it was ‘moving but never maudlin’. Paul T Davis at BritishTheatre.com (4★) liked ‘the sublime script and performances’. Maryam Philpott at The Reviews Hub thought the play ‘sprightly, beautifully observed and full of hope’. Cindy Marcolina at Broadway World (3★) quite liked what she called ‘a gold mine of dry humour and psychological fun’.

Less enthusiastic was Clive Davis in The Times (3★): ‘some of the dialogue is showing its age’ and ‘sometimes you long for a little more pace and levity.’ Caroline McGinn in Time Out (3★) said it was ‘a pleasant revival and the Evening Standard‘s Nick Curtis (3★) found it ‘incurably quaint and dated’. Adam Bloodworth in City AM (3★) had a similar reaction: ‘Smith’s play feels deeply dated, the overlong first act stuffed with hammy..banter’.

They loved Lindsay Duncan. The Guardian said she gave ‘an imperious performance’. Caiti Grove at londontheatrereviews.co.uk (4★) speaks of her ‘very genuine and motherly performance’.

Frankie Bradshaw’s set is praised, with The Telegraph saying the ‘ravishing revolving set is almost another character.’

Dear Octopus was at the National Theatre until 27 March. Buy tickets directly from the theatre.

Average rating: 3.7

Value Rating 53 (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 30 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.)

If you’ve seen Dear Octopus, you are welcome to add your review and rating below (but please keep it relevant and polite)

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The Witches musical at the National Theatre – review

Daniel Rigby & Katherine Kingsley reach comedy heights in musical spectacular


★★★

Daniel Rigby and cast of The Witches. Photo: Marc Brenner

It’s hard not to compare the National Theatre’s The Witches with the

West End hit Matilda. Both originated as stories by Road Dahl, both have been turned into much-loved films before being transformed into musical spectaculars.

Good as this well-produced show is, The Witches never quite reaches the heights of its RSC rival. But it does offer an entertaining evening, especially if you want to take your older children to a theatrical show more inventive, and less cliched, than a pantomime.

National Theatre favourite Lucy Kirkwood has done a good job with the adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel, although it does take a while to get going. It could have gained from being half an hour shorter than its current two-and-a-half hours plus interval.

Still, her lyrics, jointly credited with the composer Dave Malloy, are sharp and witty. The latter clearly knows his way round musicals and has written varied hummable tunes appropriate to the different situations.

The plot goes back to the original story, losing the happier ending of the 1990 film. To remind you, a child discovers that a group of witches is meeting in the hotel at which he’s staying and they are planning to turn every child into a mouse. With the aid of his Gran, he sets out to thwart them.

The cast of The Witches

Director Lyndsey Turner was previously at the National with a very different show about witches. Following the tense drama of The Crucible,  she shows she is also a champion of fast-moving musical comedy. Supported by set and costume designer Lizzie Clachan, Ms Turner takes full advantage of the large cast, and the Olivier revolve.

My only reservation about Ms Clachan’s contribution is the surround of dark thorns which provide a contrast to the brightly colourful sets and costumes (and fill in the enormous Olivier space) but seem like too heavy handed a reminder that the world is a dark place.

Spectacular routines

There’s a Broadway chorus style number Magnificent, which introduces Mr Stringer, a character much expanded from the novel and played by Daniel Rigby as a frantic Basil Fawlty-style hotel manager, obsequious to his rich guests and rude to the less well off.

By the time there is an outbreak of mice in the building, Mr Stringer becomes hysterical and leads possibly the stand-out routine of the show- Out! Out! Out! It’s a dizzying number in which he and his staff prance round the revolve going from room to room looking for mice, placating complaining guests along the way. Daniel Rigby‘s contortions of face and body combined with a strangulated voice surely make him the finest physical comedy actor currently on the London stage.

Katherine Kingsley and cast of The Witches. Photo: Marc Brenner

The Grand High Witch is a superb villain, and Katherine Kingsley extracts every drop of evil from her cauldron. She is imperiously haughty, she snarls at everyone including the audience, and sings an hilarious song Wouldn’t It Be Nice, about how marvellous it would be for parents if they didn’t have children dominating their lives.

Both Daniel Rigby and Katherine Kingsley are a gift wrapped in a bowto this musical. They take the foundations of words, music and situation, and build upon them until the comedy reaches summits of laughter.

The good adult, so to speak, is the boy’s cantankerous elderly gran, beautifully played for laughs and pathos by Sally Anne Triplett. She sings a gorgeous song with her grandson Luke called Heartbeat Duet.

Let’s go back to the comparison with Matilda. Where the earlier musical scores is that its child hero survives intact to the end whereas Luke is turned into a mouse halfway through. At that point, his character alternates between being a mechanical mouse and a  boy in a costume. I know we often need to use our imagination in theatre, but this particular concept failed to fire mine.

One other caveat. Although this is a family show, it is not for young children. It’s not only the complexities of the plot and the darkness of some of the events (Luke’s parents die early on), the language and length are too much for anyone under about ten years old.

Still, for the rest, children and adults alike, there’s plenty of spectacle and comedy in this musical

The Witches performed at the National Theatre’s Olivier Theatre until 27 January 2024.

Paul paid for his ticket.

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

 

 

 

 

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Infinite Life – National Theatre – review

Annie Baker’s outstanding play about women coping with pain

★★★★

Two women sit next to one another, one is wearing a rucksack, in a stage production of infinite Life by Annie Baker
Christina Kirk & Marylouise Burke in Infinte Life. Photo: Marc Brenner

Infinite Life by Annie Baker, which I saw at the National Theatre’s Dorfman, is a play you might find riveting or soporific, or both. Five women all have illnesses that are causing them chronic pain but that conventional medicine has been unable to treat. Desperate for a cure, they have resorted to fasting in a retreat in California.

They lie on sun loungers, they doze, they sip their water or green drinks… and they talk. There’s no action, no emotional explosions, no-one dies, and no dramatic plot twists, although there is an interesting development at the end.

It sounds like a snooze-fest, and in fact some members of the audience did doze or even leave, but I was engrossed by this outstanding play.

Infinite Life may remind you of Waiting For Godot and its days apparently repeating into infinity. Like Beckett’s play, there is not much drama but a lot going on beneath the surface and quite a bit of humour. For good measure, there is the doctor in charge of the clinic, and possibly their fates, who is mentioned frequently but never appears.

Why is it called ‘Infinite Life’? I think, because the five women are so consumed by their pain that they live very much in the moment, unable to think of life beyond it.

I understand that you may prefer loud over quiet, fast over slow, witty comedy over gentle humour, but personally I loved the way every sentence of Annie Baker’s dialogue seems carefully constructed to work on two levels, and rewarded concentrated listening.

There’s the surface of apparently inconsequential talk about what they’re reading, their lists of diagnoses and failed treatments, their chat about sex. Then there are the implications of what they’re saying in the context of the pain they are feeling, as well as the hints of the lives they have led and will lead outside of this moment of suspended time.

Even Annie Baker’s trademark pauses and silences as the women gather their thoughts, or get lost in them, reinforce the disorientation caused by fasting. They also provide us the audience with moments of contemplation.

If you’re expecting their pain to be a metaphor for life, you’ll be disappointed. It is what it says on the tin. As one of the characters says: ‘If pain doesn’t mean anything, it’s so boring. But if it means anything at all then I don’t know if I can bear it.’ It is what it brings out in their characters that stands out.

It is certainly not as depressing as you might imagine. Most of the time, rather than feel sorry for them, you admire these women’s resilience, and the mutual respect inspired by their confinement together and common predicament. Their conversations are leavened with some very funny lines. I could have carried on listening to their conversations long beyond the one hour 45 minutes.

This is a joint National Theatre and Atlantic Theater Company production but the effort has been put in by the Americans. Thanks to an agreement between the British actors’ union and American Equity, the off-Broadway production has been transported set, creatives and cast. And what a cast we were privileged to see! Annie Baker has created five strong characters. Directed by James Macdonald, all the actors do a superlative job at subtly suggesting their suffering, their vulnerability, their fortitude and their inner life.

The women are mostly in their sixties or seventies. Marylouise Burke as Eileen, the oldest, shuffles slowly on and off stage, carefully laying out her cushions on her lounger, moving with delicate precision as if every movement hurts.

Mia Katigbak plays Yvette, precise and firm in her thoughts, and who reels off a tremendously long list of ailments, but also reveals her desperation for the fasting to be a cure. Brenda Pressley is Elaine, reserved and determined. As Ginnie, Kristine Nielsen has a twinkling eye and a playful manner.

Christina Kirk plays Sofi, at 47 the youngest of the cohort. She is tortured, and self torturing, at times blaming herself for her illness. You might think that chronic pain would push sex off the agenda. Far from it. While the older women muse on sex, she is still wracked by desire: forbidden lust that has jeopardised her marriage, the sex itself that is debilitatingly painful, the desperate belief that orgasms might be the cure. In the night, she leaves voice messages about her agony for her husband, and sexual fantasies for her platonic lover.

Incidentally, this was the second National Theatre production running I’ve seen (The House Of Bernarda Alba being the first), in which a woman has masturbated on stage. I’m hoping this isn’t now mandatory because the next show I’m seeing at the National is a family show, The Witches.

Sex crops up quite frequently as a subject for conversation. Someone wonders if bad sex is the cause of illness. On another occasion, there is an extended discussion after someone reveals that a cousin describes pornography for blind people. We always learn about their characters from what they say.

Some time into the play, a solitary man appears. Nelson is mature and attractive enough to make the women take notice. His character is much more thinly drawn than those of the women but Pete Simpson exhibits a believable arrogance. Unlike the others, he has a specifically identified and, it would seem, mortal disease. He seems to be introduced for two reasons. I’ll come to the other later but the first is to provide a contrast to the women’s camaraderie. ‘I don’t want to sound like a dick,’ he says, then proceeds to do just that.

He is the only character who contends that his agony is worse than that of the others. Sofi says to him: ‘You don’t actually know if your level of pain that night was worse than my level of pain on my worst night. It’s impossible to know.’ Until then, I hadn’t fully taken on board how, for the women, their suffering is not a competition. They realise that, like sex, everyone has their own unique, incomparable experience of suffering. And as an audience, we cannot make a judgment. They and we can only offer a gentle sympathy.

Privately it may be different. Eileen, who seems the calmest of all, has a moment alone on stage when she says: ‘This is the night you heard me screaming. I said terrible things …I said none of you have ever been in this much pain …I said it’s a conspiracy..I said …A minute of this is an infinity.’ Not something any of them would actually say out loud to one another: they keep their all-engulfing agony to themselves. 

When they’re not talking about sex or illness, the women often talk philosophically about what they have read, and again we can see how what interests them reflects on their own lives-  how did a similarly ill woman go about setting up a successful business; does an Asian pirate, brought up in a certain culture (for which, perhaps, read afflicted by sickness), have the free will to choose his actions or is he bound to act in a certain way?

Boring or entertaining or both?

Most significantly, Sofi is trying to read George Eliot’s novel Daniel Deronda. This is not a random choice by Annie Baker. When asked what it’s about, Sofi says that so far the book is concerned with Gwendoline and her suitors. Those familiar with the novel will know that Gwendoline is self-obsessed, contained in her own world, much as people in constant agony are.

She says: ‘If I’m not reading it all the time it seems really boring, but once I’m into it, it’s like the most entertaining thing in the world.’ Is Annie Baker giving a knowing wink to the audience about this play?

Sofi is finding it hard to get beyond page 152. The sentence she gets stuck at says irrational fear can stop you doing what you know is achievable. Something else to think about, and certainly relevant to the test Nelson provides for Sofi on whether she will act on her sexual desire.

Dusk follows day, night takes over, then another day in the blazing Californian sun begins. Lighting designer Isabella Byrd dims the lights into moonlight that actually feels cool, then slams on a sudden migraine-inducing flood of daylight. The women’s current lives may be an infinite loop as each day merges into the next but there is a finite time frame to the play. It begins with the first day of Sofi’s stay at the retreat and ends on the day she leaves.

Four women doze on sun loungers in the Atlantic Theater proudction of Infinite Life
Christina Kirk, Kristine Nielsen, Brenda Pressley and Mia Katigbak in Infinite Life. Photo: Marc Brenner

The set, from the New York design collective, dots, suggests the monotony of fasting. It is minimal and never changing. In front of a beige background, there’s a patterned breeze block wall of a similar colour, about two metres tall. In front of that there are a number of loungers. The cheap nature of the wall and beds implies that the so-called clinic is a new age sham designed to make money from desperate people who have been failed by medical science.

For the majority of the play, the women lie down as if their loungers are islands in an ocean of agony. They talk but they don’t make physical contact or delve deeply into each other’s lives. Then, as we reach the final minutes of the play, there is a moment between Sofi and Eileen, which does seem to take us forward.

They touch each other, both mentally and physically.  It’s a human connection that suggests we need not be alone in our pain. This seems to point to a way in which we can possibly learn from it. Perhaps by moving from the inward-facing world of Gwendoline to the outward-looking and more empathetic behaviour of Daniel Deronda himself.

Annie Baker is that rare class of writer who can create a funny, moving play about the human condition, without resorting to easy messages and emotional manipulation.

Infinite Life was performed at the Linda Gross Theater in New York from August 18 to October 15, 2023, and from 22 November 2023 to 13 January 2024 at the National Theatre’s Dorfman Theatre.

Paul purchased his ticket.

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

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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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