Carole Gordon, Author at North West End UK

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...

Wonderville Magic & Illusion – Palace Theatre

3Aug

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Wonderville Magic & Illusion – Palace Theatre

The West End has new wizards in town. While Cambridge Circus awaits the return of Harry Potter in October, Wonderville, a new family-friendly show packed with magic and illusion, is keeping his place warm. Wonderville is a throwback to the type of vaudeville magic show of old, featuring an eclectic range of acts. Alongside the regular performers, there's also a set by a guest artiste, one of a number performing at different shows. The energetic bowtie-wearing Chris Cox, a star on both Broadway and the West End, hosts and provides the links between the acts. Cox is an excellent MC, affable and funny. He's also a brilliant mind-reader, producing some stunning moments of "How did he know that?" and gasps from the audience as he follows in the footsteps of Derren Brown, but wit...

Starting Here, Starting Now – Waterloo East

1Jul

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Starting Here, Starting Now – Waterloo East

Maltby and Shire's revue, Starting Here, Starting Now, was first produced at the Manhattan Theater Club in 1976, with songs accumulated from the many shows they had written, some of which were never produced. As a revue, their songs have seen much more success. There have been frequent revivals and even a Grammy nomination for the original cast recording. Each song is a cleverly crafted mini-drama on the timeless themes of love and relationships, good, bad, broken, angry, joyful, new, old, hopeful and hopeless. It's an eclectic mix of songs and styles - sometimes thrilling, sometimes funny, and occasionally baffling. "Thrilling" are the performers, Nikki Bentley, Gina Murray and Noel Sullivan, all seasoned West End stars, whose voices individually and together are the ene...

23Jun

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Queen Mab – Iris Theatre

"O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone..." (Mercutio, Romeo and Juliet, Act I scene IV) Mab, an ancient fairy, travels the world and, as Mercutio describes, has been bringing dreams and nightmares to mortals for centuries. But she's bored and unhappy, seeing humans as nothing more than "a pestilential scourge upon the Earth" and preferring to dole out nightmares that prey upon their deepest fears rather than bestowing positive dreams on their sleeping forms. There are many lockdown and pandemic-themed dramas around, but likely none as charming as Danielle Pearson's "Queen Mab". The play cleverly links Shakespeare's Mab to the present day through Freya, a teenager who is going through all...

West End Musical Celebration – Palace Theatre

11Jun

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

West End Musical Celebration – Palace Theatre

Originally planned to be A West End Musical Christmas, and devised by the producers of West End Musical Drive In and West End Musical Brunch, in association with Nica Burns, this all-star concert morphed into a celebration of the gradual re-opening of the West End after the 15-month enforced hiatus. The stellar cast of Ben Forster, Alice Fearn, Sophie Evans, Layton Williams, Rachel John, Trevor Dion Nicholas and Shanay Holmes represent the very best of what the West End has to offer and this show provides a great showcase for their talents. There are many high points in a show full of great moments. John blows away the audience with "Don't Rain On My Parade", Dion Nicholas reminds the audience of what a perfect genie he was with Aladdin's "You Never Had A Friend Like Me", and Forster re...