Ralph Jeffreys, Author at North West End UK

The Story of Peer Gynt: An Evening with Kåre Conradi – The Coronet Theatre

24Feb

By Ralph JeffreysNo Comments

London

The Story of Peer Gynt: An Evening with Kåre Conradi – The Coronet Theatre

The Story of Peer Gynt is part lecture, part show and altogether brilliant. On a stage that is almost entirely bare, save a single chair turned away from the audience, Kåre Conradi welcomes us. He begins to tell us a bit about Ibsen, about Peer Gynt and about the Norwegian award named after him. In the space of just over an hour, he promises he will take us through the story. He does this by switching between a description of the plot in the manner of an engaged lecturer and sudden moments of dramatisation, where – with a surprising ease – he takes on the emotions, ambitions and character of Peer. Most of these moments he gives to us in English. Occasionally, he slips into the original Norwegian, though never without giving those of us who can’t speak it a clear sense of what he is sayi...

6Feb

By Ralph JeffreysNo Comments

London

The Gambler – Coronet Theatre

This adaptation of The Gambler by Chiten Theatre is an interesting idea but unfortunately is an exhausting experience for its audience. Dostoevsky’s short novel is all about a cast of characters sucked in by the thrill and appeal of gambling and the pursuit of inheritance. Whether it is the central character Alexei (Takahide Akimoto) betting to win his love Polina or the grandmother winning and losing money at the roulette table, everyone seems to succumb to it. This adaptation pairs an absurdist, physical style with large chunks of Dostoyevsky’s complicated text (translated into Japanese). It’s a bold proposition, but sadly it's one that gets quite lost amid the sheer intensity of the production, which leaves the audience inundated. From the very first, the actors’ energy is through...

27Jan

By Ralph JeffreysNo Comments

London

Darkie Armo Girl – Finborough Theatre

Darkie Armo Girl is a dizzying one woman show that, despite being filled with incredible details, fails to translate the writer’s experiences into a compelling show. The play is a piece of confessional theatre. Writer and performer Karine Bedrossian takes us through her life experiences which are chaotic and many. We hear of numerous difficult childhood experiences and unsettling summer holidays. She takes us through careers as a receptionist, a singer, a dancer, a model, a bartender and a stripper. There are tales of drug abuse, sexual assault, rehab, and Jerry Springer. Told to you by a friend at the pub, any one of these vignettes would be an incredible story. Put together on a stage, they become a morass. There is far too much here and the result is that the stories bleed int...

11Jan

By Ralph JeffreysNo Comments

London

Ghost In Your Ear – Hampstead Theatre

A Ghost In Your Ear is set in a recording studio, where an actor, George, has turned up late to record a job at short notice, so short he hasn’t read the script yet. It turns out it’s a horror story. As he and his friend, the sound engineer Sid, settle into a night of work, things gradually start to seem amiss. The story on the pages begins to escape them and soon George begins to see things. From there, we are plunged into a full-on horror show. The central question for a show like this is can it get your heart racing? The production comes through that test easily. Beyond employing many tried and tested horror methods, the show uses a binaural head – a microphone shaped like a human head that picks up the location of a given sound – to amp up the intensity. It is simply more engaging t...

16Nov

By Ralph JeffreysNo Comments

London

L’Indiscipline – Theatro Technis

L’Indiscipline is a mad show full of creativity and promise and an exemplar of what fringe theatre is all about. The play focuses on the Salpetriere hospital and its celebrity doctor Jean-Martin Charcot. We begin in a lecture, ourselves as the audience, as Charcot and his assistant Gilles demonstrate their various patients, turning their mental disorders into a psuedo-scientific circus show. Their star patient however, a ‘hysteric’ called Louise Gliezes, has disappeared. Gradually, clues are fed to us that this disappearance might not be temporary: a blood stain, a stolen car, a missing gun. From here the control of the two doctors unravels as they try and work out what is going on, all while trying to control their patients and maintain a calm image for us, their lecture audience. A...

Radio Live: Next Generation – Battersea Arts Centre

13Oct

By Ralph JeffreysNo Comments

London

Radio Live: Next Generation – Battersea Arts Centre

Radio Live: Next Generation is not really a play, nor does it claim to be. It is something else altogether. Over two hours, Aurélie Charon speaks to two interviewees: Oksana Leuta, from Ukraine, and Amir Hassan, from Gaza. They recount stories of their childhood, their families and their communities. Then they tell us about the wars that have disrupted all of these things. It is an even-paced few hours in the theatre, never really seeking to grab you, but never lagging either. Whether the memory being discussed is extreme or more every day, it is approached in a similar fashion, with Charon asking her questions simply. Crucially, the focus of the interview is entirely on the experiences of Hassan and Leuta. The politics of the play are thus firmly grounded in the personal. This is th...

24Aug

By Ralph JeffreysNo Comments

London

81 (Life) – Almeida Theatre

81 (Life) is an interesting experiment with a lot of heart, lacking in the structure and drive to make it fly. 81 (Life) is part of a set of community plays designed to examine what it means to be a part of Islington’s community. This installation follows a group of Islington residents (played a cast of 60 local participants) as a semi-secret group called ‘The Forum’ develops within their community. With them, we set out to explore the plays central questions of life: How to begin, how to join, how to choose and how to let go. The first two of these come through the story of Anya. After her friend Happy decides that she has become bored of their regular TV Tuesday nights and needs a break, she finds herself suddenly alone. In steps The Forum, magically appearing in her living room and e...

9Aug

By Ralph JeffreysNo Comments

London

Every Brilliant Thing – @sohoplace

Every Brilliant Thing is a sweet, but ultimately flawed, play about depression, suicide and trying to get on with life. Stemming originally from a monologue written by Duncan Macmillan and developed with co-author Jonny Donahoe, the play is about a child dealing with their mother’s suicidal depression by creating a list of all the brilliant things that make life worth living. As the character grows older, the list takes on new meanings as they deal with their own depression. The show is at its best when its performer, Lenny Henry, is left to do crowd work, finding lots of humour in the script and playing the room brilliantly. The text frequently calls for audience members to play key characters in our protagonist’s life: his dad, the vet who put his dog down, his first love, Sam. Hen...

26Jun

By Ralph JeffreysNo Comments

London

Orpheus Descending – The Cockpit

Orpheus Descending is a difficult and unwieldy play in which the creative team and especially the cast of this production do an excellent job of infusing with serious energy and inventiveness. Orpheus Descending is another of Tennessee Williams plays set in small town USA examining the knotty and repressed relationships of its residents. Mostly we follow the story of Val Xavier (Johnathan Aarons), an outsider with a sordid past who is trying to make a new life for himself. He is quickly drawn into the maelstrom of the town. He is pursued by Carol Cutrere (Daisy Hargreaves), the town’s own scandal, who both wants him romantically and is trying to warn him of the potential danger he is in. Soon, however, Val is falling in love with Lady Torrance (Madison Coppola), the daughter of an I...

20Jun

By Ralph JeffreysNo Comments

London

4.48 Psychosis – Royal Court

‘At 4.48 when depression visits, I shall hang myself to my lover’s breathing’. Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis contains many lines like the one above that simply go through you. The play is a beautiful and terrifying exploration of the pain, anguish, despair, boredom and paralysis that accompany someone thinking of killing themselves. The work has an obvious resonance because it is Kane’s last before her own suicide, but the quality of the writing is such that it would be wrong to say that this is why the play is so impactful. Kane mixes honest, brutal statements with poetic, even biblical passages; lucid descriptions of a prescription with strange lists of numbers and staccato strings of words ‘flicker, punch, slash, dab, wring, press, burn, slash’. It is a startling piece of writing, w...