Theatre

Why do theatres think audiences want Covid-related drama?

Hats off to the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. They’ve discovered a new form of racism. Some people say we have enough ethnic division already but in south-west London they’re gagging for more apparently. A new play, Prodigal, examines the prejudice endured by a Ugandan chap whose mother moved to London when he was a child and whose younger siblings are British. Family tensions depressed him. ‘You all made me feel ugly,’ he moans. The shifty whinger has returned home after his mother’s death in order to cheat his family out of an insurance pay-off. It’s remarkable to see a drama that reinforces a damaging stereotype but the author, Kalungi

Theatre’s final taboo: fun

How will the theatre look after lockdown? A clue emerges in a statement made by Guy Jones, the literary associate of the Orange Tree in Richmond. ‘The victims of this year are many. Homelessness is on the rise, loneliness is deadly, the monster of racism lurks in every-day interactions… and many of the inequalities we live with are written into the systems in which we are asked to participate.’ ‘The victims’. That’s his starting point. It might seem odd that a theatre should prioritise the injured and the aggrieved, as if the stage were a tribunal or a public court where justice is dispensed. But that’s how theatres see themselves.

Lloyd Evans

This comedy duo should be on Netflix: General Secretary reviewed

General Secretary is a new drama with a dull title and an off-putting poster. A pair of angry women in sombre clothing glare into the middle distance. But the satirical premise is intriguing. What if two young females with no experience took over the world? Georgie and Cassie are working from home when they receive a mysterious message from the United Nations. A pushy German blonde appears on their screens and makes an announcement: ‘You vill now be presiding over ze vorld.’ That’s it. And so they take control from their kitchen. The first surprise is that the newly empowered sisters don’t set about exposing the faults of male-dominated governments.

A fantastic online show of Euripides’s take on Helen of Troy

Everyone knows Helen of Troy. The feckless sex popsicle betrayed her husband, Menelaus, and ran off with the dashing Paris, which triggered the ten-year Trojan war. The Greeks were victorious but after sacking the city they went straight home again. So what was the point? Euripides’s play Helen takes a radically different approach in this Zoom production by the Centre for Hellenic Studies at Harvard. The script is crammed with enough twists and turns to make an entire Net-flix series but the running time is barely 60 minutes. Euripides opens with a narrative bombshell by revealing that Helen was absent from Troy throughout the conflict. The gods had spirited her

If you want a play that brings girls into science, commission a man: Jina and the STEM Sisters reviewed

Jina and the STEM Sisters is a blatant act of propaganda. And its intentions are excellent. This is a musical puppet show that sets out to encourage girls of eight and older to take up careers in science where women remain under-represented. The heroine, Jina, is a schoolgirl who embarks on a hike through a dark forest haunted by ghosts and demons. It’s not clear to the viewer why she’s there or where she’s going. And she hasn’t a clue either. Perhaps the forest represents the world of intellectual repression she inhabits. ‘I ask a lot of questions,’ Jina tells us. ‘They say, “too many questions”.’ That’s an odd start.

Promising material squandered: BKLYN – The Musical reviewed

BKLYN — The Musical gives itself a headache for no reason. What does ‘BKLYN’ mean? Perhaps it’s a random jumble of letters caused by a muffin landing on the keyboard. A punter who sees the title once and later looks it up online is unlikely to recall the precise order of the letters, and his search will probably fail. And he’ll have trouble discussing the show with his friends because he won’t know how ‘BKLYN’ is pronounced. It turns out that the show’s heroine is called Brooklyn, and the writers decided to capitalise her name and extract three of its letters. Sensible theatre-makers don’t create problems like this for themselves.

There’s the kernel of a good show in this copycat Hamilton: Treason the Musical reviewed

Copycat Hamiltons are everywhere. Lin-Manuel Miranda led the way by turning an unexamined corner of history into a smash-hit show. The latest antique subject to become a musical is the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The script, by Ricky Allan and Kieran Lynn, ought to include those words in the title because they give vital data about the location, the historical period and some elements of the story. It’s a priceless asset. But they’ve tossed it aside and plumped instead for the vague, unsuggestive ‘Treason’. The best-known figure in the conspiracy, Guy Fawkes, gets a mention — as ‘Gwee-dough Forks’ — but doesn’t feature as a character. Another puzzling decision. Writers

How real is the performing arts exodus?

Think back 12 months to when you first felt the pandemic. Not when you first read about Covid-19, but the moment of impact — the lurch in the stomach as it hit you that this time, it really wasn’t going to be OK. For Emma Cook, a freelance stage manager on the John Cleese farce Bang Bang!, the moment came during a rare week off. ‘I was sitting in a restaurant near the Bush Theatre in London, waiting to go and see The High Table, and I got a message from a friend who had just flown back from overseas: “Why are the theatres all closed?”. I thought, no they’re

Unhappy blend of melodrama and allegory: Southwark Playhouse’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice reviewed

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a musical fantasy set in a Nordic town near the Arctic circle. Johan is a magician whose healing powers have won him the respect of his neighbours. But his rebellious daughter, Eva, has been expelled from school for scrawling ‘down with the patriarchy’ on a mirror. She’s also suspected of trying to sabotage a local factory that refines energy from the Northern Lights. The wicked factory owner, Fabian, is an emotional cripple who lives with his sick mother and rejects claims that the aurora is fading because too much energy has been extracted from it. If he continues to run the factory at full tilt, he

Even Adrian Lester’s sweetness, grace and nobility can’t rescue Almeida’s Hymn

The Almeida is fighting back against lockdown with a sprawling family drama about two long-lost siblings. Adrian Lester plays Gilbert Jones, a successful entrepreneur, who runs a clothing business and a stationery shop in London. At his dad’s funeral he meets his half-brother, Benny (Danny Sapani), who was brought up in care but is now married with kids. The two bros become pals. They meet for salads at coffee shops where they swap news about each other’s families. They visit the gym and do stretching exercises while discussing their diets and their problems finding spaces to park. Benny, who appears to be a fitness coach, takes charge of these low-energy

This fabulous play is like a Chekhov classic: The One Day in the Year reviewed

The One Day In the Year is an Australian drama about the annual commemoration of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. It was written in 1958 but it could have been dashed off last week. What makes it thrillingly topical is that the personality of Churchill and the truth about Britain’s colonial past are central to the story. The main character, Alf, is a veteran of the second world war who works as a lift operator. He detests the new Australia and he calls the younger generation a ‘stink lot of imitation Yanks’. For him, Churchill is the greatest Englishman in history. But his rebellious son, Hughie, describes Britain’s wartime prime

The show must go on: theatre to look forward to this year

With the vaccine rollout underway, the theatre world is betting on a triumphant return in the spring – and this time for good. If, like me, you can’t wait to get back to the West End, here are eight shows to book ahead for (whilst keeping your fingers firmly crossed for the vaccine rollout). Good Harold Pinter Theatre, 21 April – 17 July David Tennant returns to theatreland to take on the leading role in CP Taylor’s seminal play about a liberal-minded professor and dutiful husband who finds himself seduced by the rise of National Socialism in 1930s Germany. Once described as English theatre’s ‘definitive’ Holocaust play, Good is the

Perfect to fall asleep to: Good Grief reviewed

Good Grief is a new drama starring Sian Clifford who shot to fame as the older sister in Fleabag. The script by Lorien Haynes is described by the producers as ‘sharp, funny, brutal, irreverent and quintessentially British’. The action begins after a funeral where a handsome young Asian guy named Adam, chats to a fellow mourner, Cat, who looks about ten years older than him. Cat has set up Adam with a blind date that he didn’t enjoy. ‘I was peeling her off me,’ he says, ungallantly. But Adam’s sexuality is rather a puzzle. His wife, Liv, has died and he boasts to Cat about Liv’s endless romantic conquests. At

How Facebook became a freedom-gobbling corporate monster

Southwark Playhouse is beating the latest lockdown with a zingy new musical about social media. The performers, Francesca Forristal and Jordan Paul Clarke, remember the far-off days when Facebook was just a harmless supplement to ordinary social interactions. How did it turn into a freedom-gobbling corporate monster? We meet the Zuckerbergs, Mark and Priscilla, as they usher a TV crew into their mansion like a pair of politburo bigwigs showing tourists around a glue factory in North Korea. The down-to-earth billionaires offer bland answers to scripted questions. ‘How do you raise children when you can give them anything?’ Mark reveals that the mini-Zuckerbergs are treated like normal kids. ‘But, guys,’

Actors will be in trouble if the Bridge Theatre’s latest experiment catches on

Flight has been hailed as a new form of dramatic presentation — prefab theatre. It’s great to look at. A set of model boxes containing stick figures and colourful landscapes slides past the seated viewer while a voiceover reads the narrative. No thesps are required, which may be a relief to producers and directors but the acting profession will be in trouble if this experiment catches on. The story, adapted from Hinterland by Caroline Brothers, follows two Afghan teenagers, Kabir and Aryan, who decide to walk to Europe in search of a better life. All they have is $2,000 in cash and a spare pair of trainers each. Along the

Deserves to be a permanent winter fixture: Potted Panto at the Garrick reviewed

Potted Panto is a 70-minute parody presented by two burlesque comedians. Jeff is a tall, playful bungler and his colleague, Dan, is a squat, dour authoritarian who likes to see everything done efficiently. They leap on stage and declare their plan to present a compendium of the best-known Christmas shows. ‘All six of them,’ says Dan. ‘No, all twelve,’ contradicts Jeff, unfurling a list that includes classics from the TV schedules like A Christmas Carol and Das Boot. He insists that these non-pantos are included in their panto rundown. And so a war of opposites begins. Jeff is all appetite and instinct while Dan stands for reason and method. Or,

Like eating 58 luxury chocolates: The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk reviewed

The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk begins with a phone conversation between a pretentious art critic and a man called Marc. This turns out to be Marc Chagall, the expressionist painter, who was born in Vitebsk in Belarus in 1887. It would have been helpful to include his name in the title. Emma Rice, the director, relies on her usual blend of dances, songs and pretty lighting to tell her tale. She has very low expectations of her audience. The sad characters cry. The happy characters laugh. The amorous characters dance rapturously. Everyone sings a lot. The script consists mainly of plot points written in clunky, airless prose. ‘It was the

Absorbing and beautifully designed: Jane Eyre reviewed

Blackeyed Theatre is another victim of the virus. Its production of Jane Eyre was midway through a UK tour, and due to visit China for a month, when the pandemic shot its plans to bits. Last month the show was revived on stage and committed to film. Kelsey Short (Jane) leads a team of just five actors who tell the story as Charlotte Brontë wrote it. The costumes, hairstyles and habits of speech seem authentically Victorian. The director, Adrian McDougall, has rejected the fashionable habit of presenting Jane as a rad-fem freedom fighter surrounded by grotesque male oppressors. His version reminds us how sympathetic the novel is towards men. Mr

The genius of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue

I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue has just been voted the greatest radio comedy of all time by Radio Times, ahead of Hancock’s Half Hour and the brilliant Round the Horne. The first two episodes of series 73 (can you believe it?) are also the last Tim Brooke-Taylor recorded before losing his life to coronavirus earlier this year. Brooke-Taylor was part of the original cast of the self-styled ‘antidote to panel games’, which first aired in 1972 with Bill Oddie, Jo Kendall and the show’s deviser Graeme Garden as fellow performers (Barry Cryer joined during the first series and Willie Rushton two years later). When Brooke-Taylor’s voice broke through this

Skilful and riveting: The Poltergeist at the Southwark Playhouse reviewed

Sasha is angry. He’s a gay artist on his way to his niece’s birthday party and he keeps popping codeine pills to get him through the dull ceremony ahead. His devoted boyfriend, Chet, hasn’t realised that Sasha’s drug habit is a full-blown addiction but Sasha is highly secretive. He shows us two sides of his nature at once. Outside, he’s a friendly smiling uncle who dutifully attends family celebrations. Inside he’s spitting with rage at his brother’s cosy life and its trite domestic rituals. When he greets his pregnant sister-in-law he grins politely while fuming to himself: ‘There’s a billion family photos here. If I spat anywhere I’d hit one.’