Carole Gordon, Author at North West End UK

Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story – Jermyn Street Theatre

20Jan

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story – Jermyn Street Theatre

Stephen Dolginoff's musical dramatisation of the story of so-called "thrill killers" Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb has been produced over 200 times in 22 countries since its opening off-Broadway in 2005. The horrible appeal of such stories is evident: dark, unsettling, gripping tales of narcissism, passion and the underlying and enduring enigma of "why". What led these two smart young men from wealthy Chicago families, both with ambitions to go into the law, to kidnap 14-year-old Bobby Franks in 1924, kill him, hide the body then attempt to extort money from his parents? The case was dubbed "The Crime of the Century" and went on to be used as the basis for several movies including Rope, Murder By Numbers and Compulsion. Dolginoff's two-hander focuses on the twisted sexual dynamic betw...

22Dec

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Julie Madly Deeply – Park Theatre

Dame Julie Andrews is one of the few genuine British theatre icons, beloved by millions the world over, and with a career spanning seven decades. One of those fans - a mega-fan in fact - is Sarah-Louise Young, who in this funny, affectionate and joyful tribute celebrates the life and work of the woman everyone knows as Mary Poppins or Maria von Trapp. Young may have written a fan letter to Andrews when she was a child, but she avoids simply gushing about the highs of Julie Andrews' career, also presenting the other side of her life, the failed marriage, the casting of Audrey Hepburn in the film of My Fair Lady despite Andrews' stage triumph in the role, the 15-year low point and lack of work after her topless appearance in second husband Blake Edwards' movie, S.O.B., the devastating ...

8Dec

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Algorithms – Soho Theatre

Every so often you come across a show that is pure theatrical brilliance. Witty, hilarious, sad, relatable and performed with delicious tragicomic timing, Sadie Clark's "Algorithms" is quite simply one of the best shows of 2021. It's not surprising that the play had a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019 and went on to win the TV Foundation's 'Stage to Screen' New Voice Award in 2020. Brooke is facing the milestone of her 30th birthday amid the debris of the sudden failure of her relationship, leaving her with nothing but Amira's dying succulents. She wants and desperately needs a new person in her life - hopefully hooking up before her birthday party so she can show her mother she has a date - and uses the services of the online dating company she works for as...

28Nov

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Aladdin – Lyric Hammersmith

Panto's resurgence in recent years has brought new attention to a format which often is a child's introduction to live theatre. Vikki Stone's re-imagining of the traditional Aladdin keeps the plot (well, not that there is much plot and what there is makes little sense) and brings in modern elements of beatboxing, references to TikTok, current politics and celebrity gossip. The leads wear tracksuits, the princess is feisty and unwilling to be married off to just anyone or at all but the villain is still evil and the good guys win in the end. The show starts with a song about how they all know they are just pretending because they are in panto. The audience does already know that, obviously, but it's a very on-the-nose statement to start by challenging the high level of suspen...

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike – Charing Cross Theatre

16Nov

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike – Charing Cross Theatre

In rural Pennsylvania, Vanya and his adopted sister Sonia live a quiet life of Chekhovian ennui and bitterness, after having cared for their parents in the family home. Their bickering is interspersed with hankering after a better, more fulfilled life and thoughts of what might have been. Into this pit of despair and coffee comes their hand-grenade of a sister, Masha, an escapee from the countryside who fled to the bright lights of Hollywood, achieving a degree of fame and fortune, and revelling in her perceived superiority. The three siblings seem destined to live out the lives of their namesakes, throwing in references to The Cherry Orchard (not really an orchard) and The Seagull (here a wild turkey), with misery and calamity foretold by Cassandra, their psychic and Voodoo-loving cleaner...

The Shark is Broken – Ambassadors Theatre

22Oct

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

The Shark is Broken – Ambassadors Theatre

There are few movies as instantly identifiable by the first few bars of their theme tune. The "Jaws" theme - and the movie - became an iconic hit after the film's release in 1975. The film itself may have been thrilling and horrifying, but the drama that went on behind the scenes was also amazing. Bruce, the titular mechanical star of the film, broke down after salt water corroded his insides. This left the three human stars, Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss, with nothing to do until the production team could get the shark back up and chomping on the people of Amity Island. This slice of real life has been turned into this wonderfully original production that wowed audiences at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019. It's not hard to see why it was such a hit. A...

The Beauty Queen of Leenane – Lyric Hammersmith

15Oct

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

The Beauty Queen of Leenane – Lyric Hammersmith

The current revival of Martin McDonagh's 1996 play, "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" recently completed a successful run at Chichester and has now transferred to the Lyric Hammersmith. Mag, a mean elderly woman, is being looked after by her daughter, Maureen, an equally mean middle-aged woman who yearns to get away from the stifling and constricted life she leads looking after her demanding and manipulative mother in the isolation of a Connemara cottage. The unexpected return of an old friend, Pato, offers Maureen the chance of escape but Mag is determined to scupper her daughter's chance of a new life, which would leave her alone and without her carer. These are two women who are deeply flawed and unable to tell each other the truth - Mag hiding the fact that she doesn't need to rely e...

How To Survive An Apocalypse – Finborough Theatre

1Oct

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

How To Survive An Apocalypse – Finborough Theatre

"No-one wins the end of the world." This just about sums up Jordan Hall's witty and timely rom-com-drama "How To Survive An Apocalypse" which tracks a millennial couple's sudden financial collapse and how this leads them to question their smart urban lifestyle and adopt a survivalist mentality. Realising that they are not at all prepared for a natural disaster or catastrophic failure of society, they start to learn what they will need to survive. They quickly find that Jen's skills of running a lifestyle magazine and Ben's coding ability have left them remarkably lacking when it comes to survival in a potential post-apocalyptic world of no food, water or electricity. They can just about buy bottled water and tinned goods with their maxed-out credit cards, but becoming hun...

18Aug

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Village Wooing – Etcetera Theatre

Produced as part of the Camden Fringe Festival, George Bernard Shaw's "Village Wooing" was written in 1933 while he was on a world cruise on the Empress of Britain. This two-hander in the form of three conversations has characters loosely based on people Shaw knew - writer Lytton Strachey and Jisbella Lyth, postmistress in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire, where he lived for most of his life. Shaw said of his play, "..my efforts to write resulted in nothing at first but a very trivial comedietta which only Edith Evans could make tolerable." He was wrong. This is a mini gem of a play, very much of its time and a period delight. The unnamed characters, known only as "A" and "Z" meet on board a cruise liner, he a widowed writer and aesthete, struggling to find the words for his Marco ...

Carousel – Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

10Aug

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Carousel – Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

Walking into the atmospheric surroundings of an open-air theatre is always a joy, never more so than with the anticipation of seeing one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's most popular musicals. Carousel is undoubtedly a classic and was even voted the best musical of the 20th Century by TIME magazine. Written in 1945, the story is a simple one: young millworker Julie Jordan meets bad-boy and serial womaniser carousel barker Billy Bigelow and is immediately smitten. So much so that she risks her livelihood just as he's also given the sack. Living on the generosity of family and friends, their situation goes from bad to worse when Julie tells Billy she's pregnant and he becomes desperate to provide for his family and is willing to risk, and lose, all. Carly Bawden is a charmingly innocent Julie...