Friday 5 December 2008

 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests


Mischief making

Wednesday, 30th July 2008

The Female of the Species
Vaudeville

Hangover Square
Finborough

The Frontline
Shakespeare's Globe

The Globe has commissioned a new play which wants to put the voice of the streets on stage. Oh, God. Set outside Camden Town Tube station, the show offers an arbitrary haul of tramps, drunks, pill-poppers, flesh-peddlars, cross-dressers, knife artists and all the other lack-brain inner city hysterics, wannabes and losers. The direction is sometimes frenetic and clumsy and the author has a terrible need to preach. A rapper who sells crack prances about barking, ‘The war on drugs is just a war on blacks,’ a somewhat incomplete analysis of the issue. That said, I warmed to the show a lot. It has a good heart, it’s performed with real verve and sincerity and its patchwork quality ensures that the dull bits don’t linger long. If I were 14 and prepared to accept simplistic political posturing as if it were astute and worldly cynicism, then I’d enjoy this show tremendously. Got a house full of idle teens? Send them along. Don’t go with them.

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