Kira Daniels, Author at North West End UK

Your Lie In April – Harold Pinter Theatre

8Jul

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Your Lie In April – Harold Pinter Theatre

A musical about musicians and for everyone, the play is based on the manga by Naoshi Arakawa and operates with a clear respect for the conventions of its source material and culture of origin. With a new English book by Rinne B. Groff, music by Frank Wildhorn, and lyrics by Carly Robin Green and Tracy Miller, the story is told concisely and movingly. Jason Howland’s music arrangement and orchestration is tremendous, and the work is as much a pleasure to listen to as any musical that so highly prizes musicianship. Directed and choreographed by Nick Winston, this production has a surreal gracefulness to it as transitions between scenes and musical numbers coalesce seamlessly and lend a magical quality to every encounter between character and audience. The venue is pushed to its full ph...

6Jul

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Sparks – Jack Studio Theatre

Sisterhood is complicated. Sparks, a ninety-minute play by Simon Longman does not make it any simpler. Directed by Julia Stubbs for the Upper Hand Theatre whose co-founders also star in this production, Sparks stages the reunion of two sisters separated by twelve years without contact and a lifetime of disparate experience. Lisa Minichiello plays Sarah, a young woman without any friends who lives in an apartment without a sofa, works in an office without any purpose, and goes through the first twenty minutes of the play without any lines. Emma Riches dominates the stage as Jess, Sarah’s chaotic older sister who materializes on her doorstep one night with a goldfish and a back bar. The contrast between them is extreme almost to the point of unreality and their distinguishing features ...

25Jun

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

The Beckett Trilogy – Coronet Theatre

How much Beckett is too much Beckett? For performer and producer Conor Lovett it seems the limit may not exist. His prodigious memory and inexhaustible articulation are well displayed in this production of three plays from the novels Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable all written by Samuel Beckett. Alone on stage but very much confederate with a captive audience eager to absorb what they can from his nearly three-hour monologue, Lovett is tremendously impressive and knows it too. Directed and designed by Judy Hegarty Lovett, his conspirator in Gare St Lazare Ireland, a touring production company specializing in “presentations” of Beckett’s various works. The style of this production is extremely presentational and clearly preoccupied with faithful interpretation of the great ...

20Jun

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Kiss Me, Kate – Barbican

What rhymes with Coriolanus? Kiss Me, Kate is one of Cole Porter’s musical and lyrical triumphs with each melody seeming catchier than the last and every turn of phrase pushing the envelope further. Although its source material, Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew is hardly considered radical, Porter’s daring sense of humour and lecherous joy in lewd lyricism give this show an undeniable boldness. Its characters are imperfect. Not only are their love lives tempestuous, but every aspect of their personal lives is magnificently messy. Director Bartlett Sher in this production attempts some half-hearted tidying of the grand imbroglio that is this play within a musical within a musical but achieves much the same effect as using a dab of Purell to clean up mud-caked hands. Adrian Dunbar is ...

Michaela’s Fluent Aphasia – Bush Theatre

18Jun

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Michaela’s Fluent Aphasia – Bush Theatre

This play’s tongue twister title is aptly representative of the confusion its performance elicits in audiences. The direction is uninspired and although not entirely difficult to follow, neither is it enticing enough to engender much investment in the play’s plot or characters. The non-linear nature of Christina Carrafiell’s script most severely hampers this process and results in plot twists that feel like a dog chasing its own tail rather than a cohesive narrative unfurling. Individual scenes are punctuated with sharp, immediate, and absolute blackouts but despite the story featuring multiple shifts in time and place the elements of set and costume remain completely static. The play’s cast of four is forced then to flutter around the playing field without any grounding context ...

Pull My Goldfinger – Hen and Chickens Theatre

18Jun

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Pull My Goldfinger – Hen and Chickens Theatre

Shaken, not stirred, both intoxicating and disgusting, the worst of James Bond is what we love most. Fearless and feckless, this secret agent is on a mission to make a mess. From the deranged mind and nimble body of writer/actor, Carlos Sandin, Pull My Goldfinger is a seductive wingding of a play and a delight to behold and be held by. This absurd and interactive one-man clown show is chock full of buffoonery. Performed with aplomb, surprising sound effects, bare bravado, and unmitigated waggery, this hour’s entertainment is sure to amuse and arouse. Woodwind enthusiasts will be either delighted or horrified to see the tremendous use Sandin manages to put his clarinet to. In fact, there is very little in the playing space that Sandin doesn’t manage to pervert in some delightful a...

Being Mr Wickham – Jermyn Street Theatre

11Jun

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

North West

Being Mr Wickham – Jermyn Street Theatre

What makes a seductive storyteller? Is it the charm that derives from easy confidence or perhaps the anxious titillation induced by performed vulnerability? Being Mr Wickham, one ought to learn one way or another. A character as easy to hate on second reading of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as he is tempting to root for in one’s first exposure to the novel, if any version of George Wickham knows one thing, it’s how to arouse a reaction in an audience. This play, itself by Adrian Lukis, who played Wickham in the BBC’s iconic Pride and Prejudice at 38 and now reprises the role in a script of his own genius at 67, works hard to flesh out the irredeemable rake and cast him in new light. Neither dastardly villain nor tragic hero, Lukis’ vision of Wickham on the night of his 60th ...

Suite in Three Keys – Orange Tree Theatre

9Jun

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Suite in Three Keys – Orange Tree Theatre

Comprised of the individual plays, A Song at Twilight, Shadows of the Evening, and Come into the Garden, Maud, the latter two offered as a double bill, this is a hefty theatrical event for both performer and audience. Directed by Tom Littler, the Orange Tree Theatre’s Artistic Director, this production makes thorough use of the theatre’s performance facilities, and even positions one of its actors in the bar during pre-show and interval to serenade audiences in dulcet Italian tones with songs of the plays’ era. Referred to in each script simply as “Felix, a waiter” this Mediterranean songbird, played with charming humility and buoyant grace by Steffan Rizzi, provides the melodic throughline linking each piece to the other. The set, designed by Louie Whitemore is also remarkably consiste...

8Jun

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Marie Curie – Charing Cross Theatre

A woman scientist!? The woman scientist. Marie Curie, a new musical written by Seeun Choun and Jongyoon Choi fleshes out the story of a scientific pioneer who put her own body on the line in order to secure both a scientific and feminist legacy. Whether or not this was her intention or merely a by-product of her inexhaustible efforts to unearth more information about radioactivity is not a question this play entirely answers over the course of its approximately hour and forty minute run time. Narrated by Marie (Alisa Davidson) but seen from the hazy imagined perspective of her daughter Irène Curie (Lucy Young) this play is very much concerned with the legacies passed between mothers and daughters and the value of role models. With English lyrics, new musical arrangements and musical dir...

The Merry Wives of Windsor – The Roman Theatre of St Albans

5Jun

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

The Merry Wives of Windsor – The Roman Theatre of St Albans

Approaching Shakespeare with much as much joy and as little reverence as the children’s book “When Pigasso met Mootisse” treats the artists whose work it adapts, this production is technically recognizable as one of the most often neglected of the great playwright’s works but is in many ways a chimera of Elizabethan bawd, modern sensibility, and eighties sound. Not only soundtracked by the hits of that decade, this script is also peppered with cultural references time-specific enough that its heightened accessibility is restricted almost exclusively to audiences Gen X and up. This is not entirely a bad thing. Even the least meddled with performing script of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor has both a humour and a logic inherent to it that demands an adult understanding of money ...