Kira Daniels, Author at North West End UK

13Mar

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Macbeth (an undoing) – The Rose Theatre

She didn’t know what she was headed for, and when she found out what she was headed for, it was too late. Macbeths come undone. Playwright and director Zinnie Harris’s new and old work, Macbeth (an undoing) sets out to prove that what is done can in fact be undone rather than merely redone. Shakespeare’s Macbeth is arguably overdone, especially at the moment. From Ralph Fiennes to David Tennant, powerful male actors can’t take their grubby hands off it. Audiences too never seem to tire of it. It’s an enduring story, full of sound and fury, and rife with juicy monologues for actors to sink their fangs into. The juiciness of the plot even translates well into foreign adaptations and lubricates applications to very specific historical metaphors. However much of its adaptive appeal rests on wh...

6Mar

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Rika’s Rooms – The Playground Theatre

The world premiere of Gail Louw’s Rika’s Rooms is adapted from the playwright’s novel of the same name and based on the real-life experiences of her late mother’s childhood flight from Nazi Germany, uneasy teenage settlement in Israel, marriage and immigration to apartheid South Africa, and eventual deterioration and disintegration living with dementia in England. Despite the weighty nature both of the story itself and the delivery method of its storytelling, this harrowing one woman show is suffused with love and light. Emma Wilkinson Wright is a revelation as Rika, where many a singular actor might seem overburdened and stoop under the heft of so dense a series of monologues, she acts with a potent naturalism, ruthlessly efficient in both vocal and physical transformation to the point...

25Feb

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

A Family Business – Omnibus Theatre

A show about how not to blow up the planet, a show about friendship, a show about diplomacy, and a show about what we all owe to each other as individuals and as nations, A Family Business is a genuinely thrilling and intensely educational experience. Written, performed, and introduced by the affable and erudite Chris Thorpe, watching this play feels like making a new friend. Clearly something Thorpe takes quite seriously, friendship is the foundation of this work, and his efforts to befriend experts and ignorant audiences alike are well worth their while. With a severe urgency befitting the play’s subject matter, director Claire O’Reilly weaves audiences confidently through Thorpe’s dense syllabus with more than a little hand holding. Photo: Andreas J. Etter With much the same ef...

23Feb

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Hir – Park Theatre

Vomiting all over the kitchen-sink dramedy, Taylor Mac’s black comedy shakes a cynical showmanship and irreverent discursiveness into an acidic concoction that’s a good deal easier to swallow than it is to digest. Hir (pronounced ‘here’) is a tough watch. Content warnings for “strong profanity throughout, along with discussions of sex, sexuality, and descriptions and visual evidence of domestic violence, rape and drug abuse” can be found by hunting through the production’s online listing and should be heeded. As bashful as its humour is bleak, the play’s darkest scenes are also its most illuminating. Depicting a vision of the American family life metaphorically and literally set in Malvina Reynolds’ “little boxes” it is a claustrophobic environment with a set not quite big enough for its b...

17Feb

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Deathtrap – The Mill at Sonning

What would you do for a great play? In Deathtrap by Ira Levin the answer turns out to be nothing good. With all the aesthetic drippings of a juicy whodunnit and a cast of characters each less winsome than the last, this play is powered by plot twists but never gathers quite enough steam to even fog up a window. Written in 1978 and set in the then not too distant future of 1979 Westport, Connecticut, Deathtrap does little to induce nostalgia in viewers even as it convincingly harkens back to the era of rotary phones, carbon copies, and illicit homosexuality. Fans of the play or film adaptation of Rope will find a dynamic worth exploring here that is ultimately left tantalizingly under investigated by the severely dated script and frustratingly conventional staging. Director Tam Willia...

The Addams Family Live in Concert – London Palladium

14Feb

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

The Addams Family Live in Concert – London Palladium

Act normal. Wear a black dress or pinstripe suit. Paint your face and snap along. At the London Palladium it’s Halloween in February. Copious amounts of fog billow forth from the palatial stage and the theatre is bathed in purple light as audiences amble in, many dressed for the special occasion and already buzzing with excitement. The orchestra, unlike the assembled spirits of the dead, remains unseen but makes its presence known in a vigorous overture playing jauntily under conductor Andrew Hilton, and is energetically reinforced by a skilled ensemble dancing in choreography by Alistair David. Consistently visually interesting even as the plot stretches itself thin and tired jokes leave audiences groaning, this rendition of a mid-tier musical is nonetheless entertaining and well perfo...

When You Pass Over My Tomb – Arcola Theatre

14Feb

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

When You Pass Over My Tomb – Arcola Theatre

Finger-licking, or rather phalanx licking, good, When You Pass Over My Tomb by Sergio Blanco and adapted and directed by Daniel Goldman, is laden with content warnings (for assisted suicide, mentions of necrophilia, mental health, and blasphemous language) but where it might be expected to sink under the weight of its unwieldy themes, instead sails through increasingly murky waters with ease. Photo: Alex Brenner Neither linearly nor exclusively following the story of playwright Sergio Blanco himself as his fictionalized counterpart prepares to undergo assisted suicide and engages in flirtation with the convicted necrophiliac he plans to donate the majority of his body to, this three-hand play dips its toes into many different stories and traditions, including funerals, children’s gam...

Empower in Motion: A Ballet Inclusive – Sadler’s Wells Theatre

9Feb

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Empower in Motion: A Ballet Inclusive – Sadler’s Wells Theatre

Shocking, illuminating, poignant, and triumphant, Empower in Motion is unbeatable ballet. Fundraising for Children Today, this informal gala presents itself without ostentation but packs an overpowering punch. Featuring ten acts over the course of two hours, the strength and diversity of its featured dancers never fails to captivate for even a minute. The program is contextualized by video introductions to each act describing the work done by Children Today and celebrating the inclusive dance efforts made by the event’s various other partners. Host, Grace Spence Green, gives an invigorating preamble to the procession of performances each of which awes in turn. The evening starts strong with a seamless performance by Joseph Powell-Main and Hannah Rudd excerpted from The Royal Ballet’s Sl...

Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell – Coach and Horses

6Feb

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell – Coach and Horses

Both set and staged in the Coach and Horses pub on Greek Street, Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell is pub theatre par excellence. The play opens with a bang and a crash as attendees are suddenly plunged into darkness and Jeffrey Bernard himself stumbles out into the light, or rather, into the bar itself, knocking over several items on his way to the wall mounted switch by which he will reignite the room’s several chandeliers. This is the first of several pub tricks within a pub trick that delights and disturbs audiences. The environs are more than suitable, and service is good at the bar throughout the 20 minutes of liberal drink pouring that precedes each performance. Seated tickets take bar and benches while the rest of the crowd files into the available standing space, all of which is well u...

5Feb

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

The Handmaid’s Tale – London Coliseum

How well do you remember the beginning of the end? Make sure to do your homework before attending this production of The Handmaid’s Tale where the London Coliseum transforms into the venue of a future-set historical conference where a stunning and severe white-pantsuited Professor Piexoto (Juliet Stevenson) directly addresses audience members in her introduction to the overtaped cassettes which comprise the narrative bulk of The Handmaid’s Tale. Eliciting a few laughs in her pithy introduction but primarily conveying static gravitas and the restrained sensitivity of an academic among peers, Stevenson commands the stage at the opera’s bookends. However, her forceful presence is at times an unfortunate distraction as she every so often, ever so covertly interrupts the action to change the ta...