Review: Oedipus with Mark Strong and Lesley Manville at Wyndham’s Theatre

A thrilling love story shattered by human fallibility

★★★★★

Lesley Manville and Mark Strong in Oedipus. Photo: Manuel Harlan

I love going to the theatre but I can’t deny that, while they offer the excitement of live performance, many evenings are transitory experiences- good at the time but not that memorable. Then, a production comes along that reminds you why you fell in love with theatre, and why at its best it’s a transcendent experience. A thrilling production like Robert Icke’s Oedipus, adapted from Sophocles‘ Ancient Greek tragedy and starring Mark Strong and Lesley Manville. For two hours, you are not only in the presence of two great actors, you are taken out of the here and now, into a timeless story of human experience.

First, we should pay tribute to Sophocles born over 2500 years ago and possibly the greatest playwright of all time. He wrote around 120 plays. Of the seven that survive, Oedipus, or Oedipus The King, is considered to be his finest. Sophocles provides the core of this production by showing the way Oedipus reacts to being the victim of a situation he only inadvertently caused.

Now, it will come as no surprise to you that the situation is, unbeknownst to him, he has killed his father and married his mother. And, if we didn’t know, we soon do because early on in the play, he meets someone who can foresee the future- Tiresias played by Samuel Brewer as someone frightened by his knowledge and reluctant to impart it. Oedipus, the truth seeker, insists so Tiesias tells him he will discover that he is the killer of his father and the lover of his mother. He laughs it off. After all, his father is still alive and his elderly mother is certainly not his wife.

In Robert Icke‘s interpretation, Oedipus is a modern day politican who, Obama-like, promises to be truthful and transparent- and means it. We meet him on election night, and await his almost certain victory in real time, as a clock counts down the seconds to the result. This is unbearably tense because the time is just a little less than the length of the play, which is without an interval, and which we are pretty sure will end badly

At the very start, Oedipus makes two rash decisions (rash in his advisor’s opinion). As there are doubts about his immigrant origins, he will release his birth certificate. Secondly, because there are rumours about how the last proper ruler King Laius, who was also his wife’s former husband, died 30 years earlier, he will conduct a public investigation. But sometimes the truth can be devastating and his well-intentioned decisions set off the inevitable conclusion.

Robert Icke’s Oedipus at the Wyndham’s Theatre

Everything takes place in one indoor location, the election campaign headquarters. As well as a workplace, it is also the place where Oedipus’ family live. Hildegard Bechtler‘s clean, shiny, white set suggests both a modern office and the temporariness of life, which is an on-going theme of the play. As time ticks away, so the furnishings are gradually removed.

Oedipus’ mother Merope has something important to tell him. We suspect what this will be, but he keeps putting her off. She is played by June Watson as a world-weary but steely old woman. Meanwhile, we get hints of political intrigue when we meet Oedipus’ close advisor Creon, his brother-in-law, played with a certain shiftiness and exasperation by Michael Gould. Oedipus doesn’t trust him, partly because Tiresias has predicted Creon will become leader, and partly because, unlike him, Creon sees the potential dangers of transparency.

Heart bursting drama

Most importantly, we meet Oedipus’ wife, Jocasta, a little older than him, and whom he clearly loves. The passion is still strong even after thirty years: he gives her oral sex on stage and, when interrupted, they go off for a quickie. It’s a love that dominates the play. ‘Love,’ he proclaims, ‘is the only thing that matters in the end’. Like their characters, Mark Strong and Lesley Manville are a match made in heaven: they’re tactile, warm, honest, and at ease with each other. You can feel the erotic charge. Your heart bursts with the knowledge of what is to come, knowledge that will shatter their love story.

Then, there’s the loving family. They may bicker but they are relaxed together. Some of the audience may know that in other plays by Sophocles, the consequences of tonight will play out in further tragedy, including Antigone, which features his daughter, and is currently playing in a hardly recognisable modern version called The Other Place at the National Theatre. It seems we can’t get enough of Sophocles. There’s even another version of Oedipus coming to the Old Vic next year, featuring Rami Malek and Indira Varma.

They will have to do incredibly well to match Mark Strong and Lesley Manville. When they are on stage, you feel you are in the presence of greatness. Mark Strong carries himself with the confidence, strength and arrogance of a leader, upright with jutting jaw, but he is also able to show a full range of emotions from fear to temper to tenderness. Lesley Manville is a sparkling foil to him. She laughs, she’s seductive, she’s protective, she tries to persuade him to leave well alone. When she talks of becoming pregnant at 13 and having the baby taken away, it’s a pin-drop moment of the deepest emotion, and made all the worse because we know who that baby is.

The tension is palpable as Oedipus’ determination to discover and reveal the truth leads him first to connect an accident he was involved in as a young man with the death of his wife’s despicable husband King Laius, and then to the much worse truth about his own origins.

Yes, the coincidences are a bit much, both in Sophocles‘ original and in Robert Icke‘s adaptation, but the ticking clock allows us no time to question the plot. We may not be cursed by the Ancient Greek Gods, but this play tells us we are all trapped by circumstances beyond our control from birth to death. We realise that Oedipus’ tragedy is not that he unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, it’s that his only too human quest for answers, without thought to the consequences of that knowledge, leads him to find out a shocking truth about himself. In a heartbreaking scene, we’re even reminded how different it could have been if he had made other choices.

It all comes back to being human, which I think is at the heart of theatre because of its human scale. There is a scene between Creon and Antigone in which they discuss a riddle, that is in fact the Riddle of The Sphinx, the one which made Oedipus a hero when he solved it. The answer to the riddle is, significantly, a human being.

As Oedipus’ mother says, ‘It was a struggle to get here. A struggle to be here. What can it be but a struggle to leave.’ Sophocles recognised the nature of the human condition, and Robert Icke, as adaptor and director, has laid it out again for us, magnificently.

Oedipus is at the Wyndham’s Theatre until 4 January 2025. Buy tickets direct from the theatre.

Paul bought his own ticket.

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

Click here to read a roundup of critics’ reviews of Oedipus

October 13, 2024October 13, 2024

Theatre Reviews Roundup: The Lehman Trilogy

Gillian Lynne Theatre

The story of Jewish immigrants to America and their rise and fall in the world of finance is back in the West End. The latest reviews confirm the status of The Lehman Trilogy as a modern classic. This is its third West End outing, following its premiere at the National Theatre. Understandably most mainstream reviewers gave it a miss this time around, so I’ve included some of the less established media.

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

’It’s one of the best evenings I’ve ever had in a theatre,’ said The Times’ Dominic Maxwell (5★). ‘Good luck seeing better acting this year.’ Aliya Al-Hassan at Broadway World (5★) talked about ‘the sheer scale of theatricality’ and said it was ‘A must-see for any theatre fan.’

Louis Mazzini at LondonTheatre1 (5★) called it ‘theatre at its very best, a rich and complex story told by actors at the top of their game and supported by sublime choreography, ingenious staging and essential music and other effects…simply umissable’.

Daz Gale at All That Dazzles (5★) was also fulsome in his praise: ‘Three hours and 20 minutes feels like a mere moment thanks to the consistently flawless production value, inspired direction and truly sensational talents that are the trio of actors gracing the stage. Make no mistake, this play is theatre at its very best.’

Franco Milazzo for Theatre & Tonic (5★) said, ‘Even when this play is watched again and again, the experience only deepens, not dulls…this masterwork is a monumental achievement. Even though it is largely a work with its head stuck in the past, it stands out as one of the greatest new dramas of this millennium.’

Anya Ryan at LondonTheatre (4★) confirmed, ‘this theatrical epic is as much of a boundary-smashing tour-de-force as ever.’ She went on, ‘the unique skill of The Lehman Trilogy is that it shows the repetitive rhythms and cyclical nature of life. Impeccably delivered, this astonishing family saga is perfectly pitched for the stage’.

Gary Naylor on The Arts Desk (4★) praised ‘the sheer chutzpah of its staging and acting’ but commented ‘Where is the hero? Where is the villiain? Where is the joy? One is left feeling the same about the play as one does about the Lehmans – more to be admired with reservations than to be loved unequivocally’.

Ke Meng at Theatre Weekly (4★) held back a little bit: ‘while the production is phenomenal with its unparalleled theatricality, the narrative feels more like a tribute to London bankers who want to see themselves on the West End stage, or a eulogy to Lehman’s finance empire and the once-vanquishing capitalism, rather than a critique or a reflection on such bustling prosperity.’

Critics’ average rating 4.6★

Value rating 51 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

The Lehman Trilogy can be seen at the Gillian Lynne Theatre until 5 January 2025. Buy tickets direct here

If you’ve seen The Lehman Trilogy, please add your review and rating below

October 10, 2024October 20, 2024

Theatre Reviews Roundup: The Other Place

Lyttelton Theatre at the National Theatre

Tobias Menzies and Emma D’Arcy in The Other Place. Photo: Sarah M Lee

‘After Antigone’ says the publicity material. In fact, you need know nothing about Sophocles’ classic play to enjoy (or not) Alexander Zeldin‘s new play about a grieving family at war with each other. It garnered three 5 star reviews from heavyweight critics but this was balanced somewhat by four less convinced 3 star reviews. The cast which included Tobias Menzies and Emma D’Arcy were praised.

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

Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (5★) said, ‘it’s extraordinary how much tension Zeldin and his excellent cast generate.’She commented, ‘The words have a real sense of jeopardy; they seem to spring from deep within, and as events take their course, they feel both inevitable and surprising. As taboos are broken and truths are revealed, they generate gasps of sympathy and shock.’ About the cast, she said, ‘Menzies is towering as Chris…conveying a man on the edge, desperately fighting for control and his sanity. He’s an actor of incredible stillness too; he doesn’t react, he simply seems to feel. But he is matched in intensity by D’Arcy who makes Annie’s desire for justice, for poles to cling to in a frightening world, profoundly moving and empathetic. Their mutual pain becomes our pain, a resounding cry down the centuries, a vindication of theatre’s unique ability to make us feel.’

Gary Naylor for Broadway World (5★) described it as ‘a ferocious whirlpool of a play that sucks you further and further down into a vortex that drowns you in man’s venality.’ He said, ‘Seldom do all the elements that power theatre’s unique capacity to crash over the fourth wall like a tsunami, come together as effectively as they do in this electrifying, unforgettable 80 minutes of squirming mental discomfort.’ He went on to praise ‘ the clean modernsm’ of Rosanna Vize’s set, ‘beautifully lit by James Farncombe’, and Yannis Philippakis’s music (that) also nags like a stomach cramp’. And he praised all the actors, including ‘Tobias Menzies (who) barely seems to act at all, a remarkable and rare gift for an actor. Often shrouded in an overcoat, he can stand still for minutes at a time while we see his frustration curdle to anger, his guilt bleed into self-pity, his arrogance fuel his entitlement.’

Demetrios Matheou on The Arts Desk (5★) said, ‘One of the wonders of the production is that it elicits edge-of-seat drama from a scenario – centred on a family squabble over an urn – that could easily have descended into absurdity. Instead, Zeldin has conjured a novel tragedy that, despite its roots, feels horribly of the here and now.’

Clare Allfree for the Telegraph (4★) delared, ‘this is sucker-punch theatre, beautifully detailed and at times excruciatingly funny.’ The Standard‘s Nick Curtis (4★) called it ‘elegantly acted, powerfully atmospheric but remorselessly fatalistic updating’ with ‘A crack cast’.

Arifa Akbar in The Guardian (4★) described it as ‘a delicately observed portrait of a family imploding with grief and contesting memories…Although lean at 80 minutes, its drama is huge.’ The Stage‘s Dave Fargnoli (4★) noted, ‘Taut, stretching pauses abound when words dry up, and there are sudden moments of heart-in-mouth tension, often defused with satisfyingly savage punchlines.

Helen O’Mahony for LondonTheatre (3★) felt there was ‘not a clear point to this story, except, perhaps, to remind us that difficult people are often the product of difficult pasts. But it’s a play that develops slowly then drops a bombshell; a night at the theatre you won’t forget.’

Time Out‘s Andrzej Lukowski (3★) concluded, ‘It’s a muddled showing from Zeldin the writer. But the elegant, ominous production from Zeldin the director ultimately salvages things, as do extremely committed performances from D’Arcy and Menzies. Their belief in this play very nearly carried me.

Fiona Mountford of the i (3★) was less impressed than most of the others: ‘Too much remains unexplained, too many details omitted, for catharsis to be achieved.’ Although, she did say, ‘(Alison) Oliver once again confirms her status as one of the brightest actors of her generation with a performance of gloriously twitchy watchfulness and unspoken depths of sorrow.’

The Times‘ Clive Davis (3★) also had a disappointing evening: ‘This is one of those National productions where you find yourself admiring individual elements — the set, the acting, the lighting — without being seduced by the play itself.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.9★

Value rating 57 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

The Other Place can be seen at the National Theatre until 9 November 2024 Buy tickets direct here

If you’ve seen The Other Place at the National Theatre, please add your review and rating below

October 9, 2024

Theatre Reviews Roundup: Look Back In Anger / Roots

Almeida Theatre

In their Angry And Young season, The Almeida has revisited two plays from the 1950s that helped revolutionise the English stage. Both concern working class people and are set in kitchens (hence the nickname ‘kitchen sink drama’?). Atri Banerjee directs John Osborne’s Look Back In Anger and Diyan Zora directs Arnold Wesker’s Roots. Each critic had a favourite, while often not liking the other: where some saw a striking portrait of anger and misogyny in Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger, others were merely disturbed; some admired Roots‘ defiant Beattie, others thought the play lacked passion. All admired the stars Billy Howle and Morfydd Clark. I’ve separated comments about the two plays but the star ratings sometimes covered both, and sometimes star ratings were omitted.

Look Back In Anger

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar (2★) was on the attack: ‘watching it now is a curiously cold anthropological experience’. ‘John Osborne’s pugilistic sweet-stall seller…looks like a charmless, self-pitying tyrant here who weaponises his working-class chip against his wife.’

Patrick Marmion in the Mail (2★) joined in, ‘There’s a strong seam of misogyny in all Osborne’s writing — and Howle does little more than lend this sullen, self-pitying exponent a babyish whimper. The play has little to teach us, and does less to amuse.’

The Times’ Clive Davis (3★) felt ‘watching the endlessly self-pitying Jimmy complain about his wife, Alison, is like watching a thoroughly one-sided boxing match’. Sam Marlowe in The Stage said, ‘The unrelenting verbiage of Jimmy Porter, as he assaults Ellora Torchia as his upper-class wife Alison with a battery of taunts and insults, is heavy going and quickly begins to seem like overkill.’

Fiona Mountford in the i (3★) called it, ‘this interminable bore of an often misogynistic rant’. Susannah Clapp in The Observer (3) took a similar stand: ‘Billy Howle dazzles as Porter: as raw and ranging as Poor Tom on King Lear’s heath. But for all their force, his speeches are puny: Osborne glorying in his misogynistic power.’

Andrjez Lukowksi of Time Out (3★) commented, ‘antihero Jimmy Porter’s abusive treatment of his upper middle class wife Alison is deeply problematic. It was doubtless meant to be so at the time as well, but it was written in an age with a different attitude towards domestic violence, and I think the passage of years has made Jimmy an increasingly repulsive, harder to emphasise with character. ‘ He didn’t like with the way the production moved away from the original’s naturalism: ‘At the end of the day a Pinteresque take on Osborne neither conveys the shattering impact of Look Back in Anger’s original incarnation nor, crucially, can it out-Pinter Pinter.’

Aleks Sierz at The Arts Desk (4★) took a more positive view: ‘What’s exciting theatrically is Osborne’s truthfulness in depicting masculinist attitudes which are as prevalent today as they were some 70 years ago. Yes Jimmy rants; yes, he’s unbearable (we have all surely met his type); yes, his opinions are disagreeable. But, boy, does he light up the stage.’

Tim Bano in The Standard (4★) called it ‘a crackling piece of drama’. For him, ‘Banerjee pulls the tension tighter and tighter, a nasty, thrilling tension, in which Porter expresses his vile, misogynistic, insulting views, shoving them at his wife and friend Cliff because there’s nowhere else for them to go.’

The Telegraph‘s Dzifa Benson (4★) said, ‘Howle portrays (Jimmy) as a coercive abuser, with a nervy, febrile energy that always feels dangerously on edge and ready to explode at any minute.’

Matt Wolf for LondonTheatre (4★) said, ‘you shiver at Jimmy’s weaponising of verbal finesse – language from his mouth cuts arguably more deeply than a knife – even as you sense a lost and haunted manchild adrift in a world that, as Jimmy knows full well, doesn’t give a damn.’

Sarah Hemming in The Financial Times (4★) declared, ‘It’s a blazing production of a tough, ugly, angry, desperate, sad play.’ Sarah Crompton at Whats on Stage (4★) observed, ‘(Howle’s) Jimmy really is lost and by emphasising that, Banerjee subtly counteracts Osborne’s unbearable desire to see this ruthless man-child as a hero.’

For Alexander Cohen at Broadway World (5★) was the most enthusiastic, ‘To experience John Osborne gut the audience like a fish, all their grotesque innards splayed out in front of you is as intoxicating as it is nasty…Banerjee makes it clear as day: his clenched indignation is even more pathetic in 2024.’

Roots

The Guardian (4★) said, ‘It is a static play but there are masterful subtleties around class and interplay of characters built into its pace, alongside humour.’ The Observer (4★) called it ‘an extraordinary piece of work: intimate and visionary’.

The Times (4★) noted, ‘Morfydd Clark is utterly convincing in this role. Beatie’s tragedy is that she patronises her folks yet has acquired all her new values from a bohemian boyfriend’. LondonTheatre (4★) called Clark ‘a stonking star turn’.

Dzifa Benson in the Telegraph (4★) said, ‘Morfydd Clark lends (Beattie) a breezy charm and resilience that seem to belie the raw vulnerability she displays when Beatie’s mother gives her a dressing down.’

The Financial Times (4★) enjoyed ‘Diyan Zora’s deftly paced and beautifully acted production of Roots … She keeps Wesker’s punctilious naturalism and yet frames the drama as a memory play.’

The i (3★) said, ‘Wesker lets out an impassioned cry for working-class liberation through greater curiosity and captures the timeless emotional theme of the facility with which children blame their parents for their own failings. Beatie has strong roots in this limited but loving place; a top-quality 100 minutes of drama shows that she also has a winningly defiant mind of her own.’

The Stage thought, ‘Clark makes Beatie’s eventual epiphany powerfully moving.’ As to the production, ‘overall, it’s a brisk staging that serves the play well, and if it does so without any particular innovation, it’s crammed with texture and feeling.’

Whats On Stage (3★) took a different view: ‘The problem is that Wesker’s writing lacks the ability to leap into the family’s minds; it’s a sociological study rather than a drama. Diyan Zora’s stylised, non-naturalistic staging pushes them further away.’ For the Mail (3★), ‘Wesker’s play…works best as social history.’

The Standard (3★) didn’t find much to get excited about: ‘The anger is deadened, drowned out in a society that’s far angrier, and far louder. Zora’s revival goes some way in cracking open the slightly dry carapace that surrounds the piece, and there are undoubtedly great moments, but too often it feels like an experiment in reviving a forgotten play, too much like homework.’

Critics’ average ratings:
Look Back In Anger 3.5★ Roots 3.6★

Look Back In Anger and Roots can be seen at The Almeida Theatre until 23 November 2024. Buy direct from the theatre

October 7, 2024October 8, 2024

Theatre Reviews Roundup: Juno and the Paycock

Gielgud Theatre

One To Avoid?

The 100th anniversary of Sean O’Casey’s tragicomedy turned into more of a wake than a celebration as critic after critic laid into the production. If the producers hoped a barnstorming performance from Mark Rylance would carry the day, they will have been disappointed. Even critics who liked his over-the-top acting weren’t sure whether it worked in the context of the production. Many weren’t convinced that the production itself had got the balance right between comedy and tragedy. With no less than four 2 star reviews from leading critics, Juno and the Paycock has one of the worst average ratings and value ratings of the year so far.

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

Time Out’s Andrzej Luwoski (4★) was lone in giving four stars and almost alone in loving Mark Rylance’s performance: ‘Rylance has gone full vaudevillian… he rocks a toothbrush moustache, a penchant for dazzling extremes of physical business, and a tendency to directly address the audience or look bewildered out of the corners of his eyes as if he can’t work out why he’s trapped in a play. For the first half he’s so dazzlingly strange and doing so much more than anyone else – much of it inscrutable – that it’s hard to focus on the other actors. I found it brilliantly, bizarrely funny, the sort of auteur performance that no other actor alive would so much as think of giving.’ He was right to say, ‘I suspect reviews will be divided on whether it makes any sense in the wider context of the production.’ He added emphatically, ‘But you know, if somebody offered me a Picasso I wouldn’t fret that it didn’t go with the furniture.’

Marianka Swain of LondonTheatre (3★) took a similar view‘ of Mark Rylance’s performance. Aided by his Charlie Chaplin moustache, he relishes the vaudevillian aspects of O’Casey’s work’…’However, Rylance is operating in a completely different register to the rest of the cast, who, while also alert to the work’s humour, offer much more grounded naturalism. That means he frequently pulls focus unnecessarily in a scene with his clowning, and undermines some of the darker material.’

Alice Saville in The Independent (3★) was disappointed that the play’s ‘deep sense of injustice and pain doesn’t get space to breathe here,’ but felt its male star saved it: ‘Rylance’s charisma knits together a production that’s full of roustabout hilarity and poignancy mingled together, bright and bleak at once.’

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (3★) said, ‘Smith-Cameron really is the heart and soul of this production, for all of Rylance’s charisma … when the tone flips to tragedy, Smith-Cameron is tremendous.’ She commented, ‘Beneath the bonhomie are O’Casey’s poetry, and the family’s craving to be somewhere they are not known, but this production does not dwell too long on these.’

Nick Curtis in The Standard (3★) had this to say about the stars: ‘Succession star J. Smith-Cameron is splendid in it as tenement matriarch Juno’ but ‘Mark Rylance … sadly continues his recent slide into mannered self-parody’. He didn’t think the play had aged well: ‘Today its juxtaposition of broad humour with sectarian violence and poverty jars, as do the thick-as-stout accents.’ As for the production, ‘Director Matthew Warchus accentuates the strangeness by giving his production the veneer of a black-and-white slapstick film, the cast in white pancake makeup and kohl-rimmed eyes.’

Heather Neill at TheArtsDesk (3★) disapproved of the treatment: ‘This is an unusual revival, giving both the comedy and tragedy full scope, but in the final scene it topples off balance into melodrama and becomes a different play altogether.’

Ssrah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (2★) called it ‘a horrible melange. Everyone on stage seems to be performing in a different version of the play, there is no chemistry, little sense of purpose.’

Dave Fargnoli in The Stage (2★) went further: ‘this turgid production from director Matthew Warchus never quite succeeds in capturing the author’s deep anger or extraordinary compassion.’ He gained some pleasure from the cast: ’Mark Rylance provides a riveting focal point as alcoholic, tall-tale-telling ‘Captain’ Jack Boyle. In a wholly committed performance, he stutters and slurs his lines, searching for words through a haze of drink and shame.’

The Times’ Clive Davis (2★) was critical of Mark Rylance. ‘His version of the feckless Captain Jack is a leering, gurning loafer who bears more than a passing resemblance to Charlie Chaplin’s tramp…It’s weirdly laboured, and makes the play’s sudden transition from high jinks to grim melodrama all the harder to take.’

Clare Allfree in the Telegraph (2★) was not impressed by either of its stars: ‘Rylance doesn’t shrink from Boyle’s essential helplessness but his confected, overly self-regarding performance lacks the requisite humanity to make us care.’ Of J. Smith-Cameron, she said, ‘she imbues Juno with a flinty pragmatism. Yet her exasperation with her obnoxious husband rarely tips into the necessary desperation. Even in the final scene, having lost almost everything, she maintains a monotone stoicism. The play demands more.’ Her conclusion? ‘O’Casey’s desolate play should force us into a reckoning with its characters’ contradictions. In this ultimately underwhelming production, one that’s far too in thrall to its star casting, there is not enough room for such complexity.’

Critics’ Average Rating 2.7★

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

Juno and the Paycock can be seen at the Gielgud Theatre until 23 November 2024 Buy tickets direct here

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

October 6, 2024October 8, 2024

Theatre Reviews Roundup: A Tupperware of Ashes

Dorfman, National Theatre

Meera Syal in A Tuppence of Ashes. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Opinions varied quite considerably on just how good Tanika Gupta’s new play was, but the critics all praised Meera Syal’s performance as a woman developing Alzheimer’s. For some, the play covered familiar ground, for others it was poetic and profound. They were all impressed by the way the many elements of Pooja Ghai’s production combined to create a sense of how the disease feels from the inside.

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

Miriam Sallon for WhatsOnStage (5★) was impressed: ‘Tanika Gupta manages to include not just the plainly heartbreaking…but the profuse life already lived, as well as the many lives left to go on without protagonist Queenie. Her end is incredibly sad, but it is not her sum total, not even close.’ He said, ‘Meera Syal as Queenie is especially potent, her charm and dynamism morphing into belligerence and revilement and, later, into confusion and fear.’

A hyperbolic Anya Ryan in The Guardian (4★) said it ‘feels like a knife has been dug into your soul and twisted’. As for the star, ‘Syal shatteringly embodies Queenie, her movements gradually changing with each scene.’

Dave Fargnoli at The Stage (4★) said, ‘Images of flowing water and thematic echoes of King Lear ripple through this bleak drama… which unflinchingly depicts the guilt and frustration of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s’. He found, ‘Syal brilliantly charts Queenie’s deterioration, beginning with small hesitations and irritable flashes, moving through terror and cruelty, until she is a diminished, almost non-verbal shell of her former self.’

Debbie Gilpin at BroadwayWorld (4★) declared, ‘to be able to quickly switch from guttural rage to tearful confusion to childlike enthusiasm is no mean feat, but Syal pulls it off expertly.’ She called the production ‘entertaining, informative, and affecting.’

For the Telegraph (4★), Tim Robey said about Meera Syal’s performance ‘It’s angry. Visceral. Sometimes shockingly abrasive.’ He was also impressed by the production: ‘touches of stagecraft, poetic in their own right, capture a life unravelling’.

Aleks Sierz on TheArtsDesk (4★) commented, ‘Gupta’s writing mixes flashes of comedy even in the most tragic circumstances. But the general tone of her writing in this play is beautifully empathetic, with a really personal sense of deep emotion, carefully balanced between expressions of love and of loss.’

Julia Rank at WhatsOnStage (4★) said, ‘It could be unrelentingly bleak – and it doesn’t hold back in showing just how debilitating the disease is and how the pandemic robbed countless families of the chance to say goodbye to loved ones – but it’s a highly watchable piece given the subject matter. The tone is remarkably well-balanced with the right amount of light and shade and culturally specific jokes that have universal resonance.’

Tim Bano in The Independent (3★) disagreed. ‘Bleak’ was his word for it. He called it ‘an interesting but unsatisfying production.’ He said, ‘The second half is a pretty tough slog through her decline, which manages to be both depressing and a bit dull.’

For Tim Wicker at Time Out (3★) ‘Syal brings Queenie vividly to life’ but ‘The Lear-ness of it all also compacts the rest of the family’s relationships into a final international road trip that feels rushed…That said, this production still hits some powerful emotional beats as Queenie disappears into herself.’

The Times’ Clive Davis (3★) liked the production: ‘The dialogue is often flat and functional, with the underwritten subsidiary characters all slotted into place. But Pooja Ghai’s production oozes colour. The designer Rosa Maggiora creates a serene, Rothko-like backdrop…that places us somewhere between reality and the inside of Queenie’s jumbled mind. At moments when her faculties crumble, Elena Peña’s artfully muffled sound design and Matt Haskins’s nuanced lighting enhance the sense of disorientation. Nitin Sawhney’s percussive score evokes thoughts turning in circles.’

The i’s Fiona Mountford (2★) talked of ‘myriad elements that misfire, that strain for gravitas yet fail to achieve it.’ Her damning conclusion was ‘This is, unfortunately, not a piece of new writing worthy of the National Theatre.’

There was no rating accompanying Lucy ‘s review at CityAM but she said it ‘isn’t just an excellent work of fiction, but a bleak, vital conversation about how we treat our elderly.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.6★

A Tupperware of Ashes is at the Dorfman in the National Theatre until 16 November 2024. Buy tickets direct from the theatre.

If you’ve seen A Tupperware of Ashes at the National Theatre, please add your review and rating below

October 3, 2024October 17, 2024

Theatre Reviews Roundup: The Cabinet Minister

Menier Chocolate Factory

The cabinet Minister at The Menier Theatre. Photo: Tristram Kenton

Arthur Pinero’s The Cabinet Minister has been given a thorough overhaul by Nancy Carroll (who also performs in it). Paul Foster directs the production. The result is that this Victorian comedy about a government minister, whose reputation is under threat when the media discover he has massive debts, has received some of the best reviews of the year.

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

LondonTheatre‘s Marianka Swain (5★) declared, ‘This is, hands down, one of the funniest shows in London theatre right now…this is primarily a total romp, jam-packed with witty one-liners, physical humour, sublime character comedy, and some very, very silly double entendre.’ She praised Nancy Carroll: ‘Carroll not only supplies this zippy update to Pinero’s work, but also gives a fabulously charismatic performance as the mercurial Lady Katherine’ and picked out two ther members of the cast: ‘the supreme scene-stealers are Dillie Keane (having almost indecent levels of fun) and Matthew Woodyatt as a doughty, overbearing Scottish matriarch and her tongue-tied son: they are absolute comic bliss.’

Cindy Marcolina at BroadwayWorld (5★) loved it. She talked of a ‘captivating cast list under Paul Foster’s crisp direction, delivering a one-laugh-a-minute play bound to lighten up the dreariest autumn day.’ She reserved the highest praise for ‘Nancy Carroll, who ‘is dazzling both as adaptor and performer; she commands the stage with scrumptious irony, deliciously flawless comic timing, and double-entendres galore’.

Of Nancy Carroll, Alun Hood for WhatsOnStage (5★) picked out: ‘Dillie Keane, resembling a dyspeptic Caledonian version of Whistler’s Mother, steals every scene she’s in as bonkers Lady Macphail’. He noted, ‘everybody and everything from the sublime cast to Oliver Fenwick’s glowing lighting, Betty Marini’s elaborate wigs and the joyful dances by Joanna Goodwin, are on the same crazy page.’ Of Nancy Carroll, he said, ‘At her most adorable when she’s behaving most appallingly, it’s virtually impossible to take your eyes off her. She’s a highlight in an evening of rare, unexpected pleasure.’ He noted, ‘there’s a poignancy to The Cabinet Minister opening on the day Maggie Smith’s death was announced, since the production’s leading lady Nancy Carroll has, perhaps more than any other actress of her generation, inherited the dame’s mantle when it comes to high comedy.’

For Helen Hawkins on The Arts Desk (5★), it was the memory of another Dame that Nancy Carroll conjured up: ‘Something in the range and versatility of Carroll’s voice echoes Judi Dench’s. She can be all soft winsome charm, then pivot to an imperious snap with pinpoint-sharp comic timing. Her asides are mercurial; her way with innuendo, hilarious.’ Comparisons with both Dame Maggie and Dame Judi- praise indeed.

Lindsay Johns for the Telegraph (5★) said, ‘This delightfully pacy, elegant and stylish new adaptation by Nancy Carroll (who also stars as Lady Katherine Twombley) positively brims with vitality, full of salacious double entendres and unmistakable contemporary political allusions. With an enchanting set and period-costume design by Janet Bird, the four-act play…is directed with a winning combination of levity, riotous exuberance and occasional moral seriousness by Paul Foster.’

Clive Davis in The Times (4★) agreed. He was particularly pleased with the way Nancy Carroll had updated Pinero’s play: ‘the script is peppered with jokes, leering double entendres and music reminiscent of Isobel McArthur’s irreverent update of Jane Austen in Pride & Prejudice (*sort of)’… ‘This play is like a glass of fizz that hits the spot.’

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar (4★) said it was ‘springy, silly and full of satirical sting’. She opined, ‘There is no stage comedy out there quite so funny, and this is as frothily enjoyable as it is pertinent.’

Holly O’Mahoney in The Stage (4★) added to the accolades: ‘Foster’s direction, with Joanna Goodwin’s concise movement coordination, ensures each player is in the optimal position on Janet Bird’s grandly dressed set to squeeze out every possible drop of comedy.’

Only Tom Wicks in Time Out (3★) seemed lukewarm about the show: ‘What stops this production from being truly great, as funny as some of its lines and scenes are, is the lack of that singular and relentless escalation you find in the best of the genre. In spite of Carroll’s changes, there’s too much going on, too many trifling side-plots, in every way. It doesn’t build to that perfect pinnacle of comedic disaster.’

Critics’ Average Rating 4.4★

The Cabinet Minister is at the Menier Chocolate Factory to 16 November 2024. Click here to buy tickets direct from the theatre.

Read Paul Seven Lewis’s review of The Cabinet Minister here. Watch Paul’s review on YouTube here.

If you’ve seen The Cabinet Minister at the Menier, please add your review and rating below

October 3, 2024October 3, 2024

Reviews Roundup: Giant

Jerwood Theatre Downstairs – Royal Court Theatre

Actor John Lithgow sits reading the Literary Review — John Lithgow in Giant at the Royal Court. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Some of the best reviews this year greeted Giant at the Royal Court. It’s the debut play by long-established director Mark Rosenblatt, directed by theatrical giant Nicholas Hytner. Giant tells the story of what happened when Roald Dahl was exposed as anti-semitic. The critics were unanimous that John Lithgow as Dahl was ‘terrific’. They agreed that the play started well but some thought it lost drive in the second act.

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

The Times’ Clive Davis (5★) described the play as ‘subtle, intelligent and stylishly crafted’. ‘Lithgow is astonishing,’ he said… ‘he gives us a celebrity who is a perplexing mixture of old school gent, jester and bully.’ He spread his praise in all directions: ‘Hytner keeps the direction brisk’. Tim Bano in the Evening Standard (5★) proclaimed: ‘It’s hard to think when the Royal Court last staged a play that felt so dangerous, or one so spectacularly good.’

In Time Out (4★), Andrzej Lukowksi declared, ‘It’s one heck of a debut play – well-made and sturdy, exquisitely tense, and scrupulously fair, less trying to damn Dahl than understand him.’ John Lithgow gave ‘a towering performance … His Dahl is magnetic: frail and malignant, cruel and kind, righteous and monstrous’. Alice Saville in The Independent (4★) praised ‘Nicholas Hytner’s simmering, tense production’ but said the play ‘ultimately lacks tension, because it’s clear from the start that Dahl is deeply but lazily prejudiced, with no intention of changing’.

Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (4★) said Lithgow’s ‘terrific performance is a compelling reason to see this play’ but ‘It’s a play that doesn’t quite decide where it stands in that argument about whether you can loathe the man and admire the art’.

Patrick Marmion in the Mail (4★) described how ‘At moments last night Lithgow’s brilliantly, brazenly unapologetic performance reduced the theatre to shocked, breathless silence.’ He found ‘The play goes off the boil after the interval’. The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (4★) agreed. She said it had a ‘slowly brilliant first act, stupendously performed by its cast’ but ‘By the second act, his antisemitism is glaring, and the drama seems to not know where to go from here’.

Describing the play for BroadwayWorld (3★), Gary Naylor said, ‘It starts ugly and stays ugly – a tonal issue the play, even under Nicholas Hytner’s direction, never resolves, hobbling its dramatic potential.’ He continued, ‘Dahl’s shocking words – are drawn directly from sources. That does beg the question as to why so little of the plot rings true.’ Julia Rank at LondonTheatre (3★) thought: ‘John Lithgow is terrific’ but ‘The weakest elements are the characterisations of the “help” characters. ’

Dave Fargnoli in The Stage (3★) concluded ‘Though the writing could be tighter and more sharply focused, Rosenblatt tackles this thorny subject with the right mix of journalistic balance, insight and rightful condemnation.’ Claire Allfree in the Telegraph (3★) thought the play ‘can’t escape the limitations of its fair-minded format’.

Critics’ Average Rating 3.8★

Giant can be seen at the Royal Court Theatre until 16 November 2024. The run is sold out but watch out for returns or extra performances, or hope for a West End transfer.

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

October 1, 2024October 2, 2024

Reviews Roundup: David Oyelowo in Coriolanus

Olivier, National Theatre

David Oyewolo in Coriolanus. Photo: Misan Harriman

A wide range of opinions greeted the new production of Coriolanus on the large Olivier stage at the National Theatre. There was a five star review in Time Out and two stars from The Times. David Oyewolo was widely welcomed back after a long absence from the English stage. There were mixed feelings about Lyndsey Turner’s production. Some thought the way she concentrated on Coriolanus as a soldier out of step with Rome’s patricians and plebeians was an exciting interpretation, others found it lacking drive. That feeling extended to Es Devlin’s monumental set, which for some captured Rome’s power and for others dominated too much.

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

Time Out’s Andrjez Lukowski (5★) thought it was ‘tremendous’. He said, ‘it’s supercharged by an outstanding central performance that deftly walks the line between sympathetic and repellant.’

The Standard’s Nick Curtis (4★) praised ‘Oyelowo’s relentless, driving conviction…His naturally benign face seems to harden and warp as Coriolanus’s arrogance consumes him. He speaks Shakespeare’s verse with rare fluency. He’s also a convincing combatant in excellent fight scenes.’

For Claire Allfree in the Telegraph (4★), ‘LyndseyTurner’s vaulting revival…thrillingly aligns the play’s tricky contours with a modern, ill-at-ease Britain.’ She talked of ‘Devlin’s formidable concrete set design’ and of Oyelowo’s ‘alert, sensitive performance reveals a man both tormented and infuriated by his increasing alienation from a world he doesn’t understand.’

Alexander Cohen at BroadwayWorld (4★) liked the production’s approach: ‘confluences of history weave together through myth and tear apart time: a tyrant in a toga is no different to one in a suit and tie.’ He was wowed by the way it looked: ‘Es Devlin’s set is dazzlingly labyrinthine, brutalist concrete blocks cascade from the rafters shattering the boundaries of performance.’ He loved the star: ‘David Oyelowo plays the eponymous anti-hero with viper fangs hissing venom in all directions’. He did have one criticism: ‘It’s a shame that the rest of the supporting cast feel sidelined…. Without their weight to counterbalance him, the production just struggles to maintain its blockbuster propulsion to the bitter end.’

Sarah Hemming in The Financial Times (4★) referred to ‘Lyndsey Turner’s mighty production…led by a terrific, deeply troubled David Oyelowo, which fuses past and present, public space and playing space, to brilliantly eloquent effect.’ Fiona Mountford at the i (4★) was impressed by Oyelowo’s ‘towering performance of coiled intensity, as well as notable verbal dexterity.’. She noted: ‘Productions of this play are usually very certain about where right and wrong lies, but Turner thrillingly throws all that into doubt. She makes us interrogate the motives of the rabble-rousing tribunes’.

Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (3★) was impressed by ‘a thrilling central performance by David Oyelowo’, but thought it was ‘weighted down by a set by Es Devlin that makes every scene look sensational, but also like a spread in The World of Interiors’ not to met ‘a score by Angus MacRae that loads each moment with ever louder significance.’ She found, ‘Lyndsey Turner’s direction is claustrophobic and tightly controlled, when sometimes the emotions of the play seem to cry out for breathing space.’ She concluded, ‘it’s a slick production rather than an involving one.’

The Observer’s Susannah Clapp (3★) thought, ‘Turner’s production is monumental rather than fully articulated or driving…The set pieces are tremendous but they lack an internal central motor.’ As for the star: ‘.David Oyelowo is forceful but uninflected; as unvarying as a bullet.’The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (3★) said the drama ‘is woodenly underpowered and never evokes quite enough feeling’.

‘The crowds rule in what is arguably Shakespeare’s most complex political tragedy,’ said Anya Ryan at LondonTheatre (3★). ‘In Lyndsey Turner’s production…they arrive, angry and holding placards, as if fresh from the scenes of a modern day protest…It is their presence that carries Turner’s vision and brings Shakespeare’s tragedy wholeheartedly up to date.’

For Helen Hawkins at TheArtsDesk (3★) ‘this is a super-dynamic production that hardly pauses for breath’. Saying it is ‘minus a key item: a hero whose end is tragic’, she observed: ‘We are watching a lucid examination of a process working itself out, not a dense study of a flawed nobleman in extremis.’ Dominic Maxwell in The Sunday Times (3★) was unmoved, calling it ‘ingenious, diverting and tension-free.’

The Times’ Clive Davis (2★) found much to criticise: ‘there’s no fire at the heart of this production.’ He declared: ‘Part of the problem with Lyndsey Turner’s curiously flat production is that you spend a lot more time casting an eye over the levitating grey slabs of Es Devlin’s characteristically chic set design than admiring the stiff-necked grandeur of Oyelowo’s doomed warrior.’ He had a problem with the latter too: ‘this soft-spoken general has the quietly exasperated manner of a middle manager overwhelmed by a late-night pile of spreadsheets.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.6★

Value rating 48 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)

Coriolanus can be seen at the National Theatre until 9 November 2024. Buy tickets directly from the theatre with this link.

If you’ve seen Coriolanus at the National Theatre, please add your review and rating below

September 28, 2024October 2, 2024

Coriolanus at the National Theatre – review

David Oyelowo gives towering performance

★★★

David Oyelowo has been rarely seen on stage in the last twenty years, thanks to the lure of Hollywood. I am pleased to report he does not disappoint. As for the production, this is a Tragedy of Coriolanus without the tragedy.

The problem with this particular Shakespeare play is that we never really get inside the head of the lead character. Unlike protagonists elsewhere in Shakespeare’s tragedies, he has no soliloquies. So we don’t understand and empathise with him in the way we do with, say, Hamlet or Macbeth.

He is a Roman soldier, but more than that he is a weapon, created by Rome’s military culture and specifically by his mother (the only human being he seems to care about). At the beginning, he establishes his military credentials in warfare. After that, it’s all about Rome trying to control this missile they have launched.

Actual physical fighting takes up a small but, in this production, memorable part of the play. Mostly we watch people talking about Coriolanus, trying to persuade him to be what he can’t be, which is to say someone who bites his tongue, compromises and flatters, and fatally underestimating him.

When he returns to Rome a hero, he seems an obvious candidate for a peacetime leader. The trouble is, he can’t hide his feelings of contempt for people and politics. Rome turns against him, then finds the missile pointed at them.

Coriolanus is up against the two great forces of Rome at that time, the plebeians and the patricians, and Shakespeare appears to have little time for either. The former are a rabble who are easily swayed, the latter are self-serving: ‘the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians’.

Coriolanus at the National Theatre. Photo: Misan Harriman

On the face of it, Coriolanus is a simple soldier, a man of principle who refuses to play the political game and seeks revenge when betrayed. As in any tragedy, his actions lead to his downfall but we are uncertain whether they are a symptom of arrogance, pride, humility, or simply a soldier’s rigid ideas of right and wrong? Lindsey Turner‘s production doesn’t discount or endorse any of these possibilities, leaving us with his inability to empathise and his black-and-white view of the world.

David Oyelowo provides us with a Coriolanus full of power and subtle feelings. He is undoubtedly a man of action. No-one in a Shakespeare play can be said to be a man of few words, and certainly Coriolanus bestows sone of Shakespeare’s finest metaphors in on those who let him down. Still, by the Bard’s standards, he is positively tight-lipped. Mr Oyelowo speaks the poetry clearly and fluently but it’s through his face and body that he most expresses his puzzlement and anger at what he encounters.

From the start, Mr Oyelowo conveys nobility- but he is a soldier first. As another soldier says: ‘Let me have war…it exceeds peace as far as day does night.’ He has a soldier’s bearing and bluntness. He bares his ripped body more than once, which contributes to the sense that he is very much an alpha male in a world of betas. In Rome during peacetime, he walks and sits awkwardly. He only seems comfortable when fighting. And the sword fight scenes are pretty exciting, as choreographed by Sam Lyon-Behan.

Whenever he leaves the stage, the temperature drops. None of the other characters emerge with much credit or force, although the actors do. Peter Forbes as Menenius, the wily politician trying to pour oil on troubled waters, is suitably patrician. Stephanie Street and Jordan Metcalfe as the devious populist tribunes Sicinius and Brutus are appropriately slimy. Kobna Holdbrook-Smith as Aufidius is also a successful soldier but, in contrast to his sworn enemy Coriolanus, he can play the political game. Pamela Novete as Coriolanus’s domineering mother has the right hectoring tone and, judging by the way she influences him into his fateful decisions, gives us another major clue to Coriolanus’s character. He respects, even fears her, but there’s no hint of love between them.

Lindsey Turner’s production brings out the contrast between the soldiers, who built and protect Rome, and the inhabitants who take for granted the benefits of peace that the army’s feats bring them. Her production begins with a video projection, designed by Ash J Woodward, where people are shown from high above scuttling around like ants.

Es Devlin provides an impressive set that continues this theme. It dominates the production and the people- maybe a little too much. The story may speak about war and democracy, heroes and the populace but it is told on a human scale. The huge set distracts from the humanity. On the other hand, when those massive marble blocks descend to create a feeling of the power and history of Rome, we get the sense that the current Romans, both the elite and the people, are like the ants we saw earlier.

There are many artefacts on tables which suggest a museum, perhaps indicating the past was once the present, that this story will soon be history, and that history constantly repeats itself. After all, we can see many examples today of populism and political ambition threatening democracy, and of people who would rather fight than compromise. This is underlined by the way the actors are in modern dress. There is a moment at the end that indicates fighters like Coriolanus will always be needed and always remembered.

A sense of hubris- that the character has brought his fate upon himself because of decisions he made deliberately- is essential to tragedy. In presenting Coriolanus as a soldier who has no interest in democracy or even other people, we lose any sense of him making a decision. In his mind there is no choice. At the Donmar a few tears ago, Tom Hiddleston made Coriolanus an arrogant aristocrat, which is one of many possible interpretations. The audience could see he’d brought his fate upon himself by choice. To me, that is why, despite David Oyewolo’s brilliant performance, this production is flat, a situation compounded by making the plebeians and the patriachs so pathetic that you wouldn’t blame Coriolanus even if had made a conscious decision to fight them.

With all the other characters reduced in stature in this production, the drama of conflict is diminished. No-one really tests him (except maybe his mother). It becomes very much about how Coriolanus is a misfit, and he’s a one trick pony, a single-minded soldier with no inner conflict.

It remains an interesting evening, but not I think one for the history books, despite an unforgettable performance from David Oyelowo.

Coriolanus can be seen at the National Theatre until 9 November 2024

Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre.