London Archives - Page 109 of 111

3Sep

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

London

Scrounger – The Finborough Theatre

In partnership with Scenesaver, The Finborough Theatre gave a final digital viewing of Scrounger and they plan to continue with monthly releases from their back catalogue to help to raise money to keep the theatre afloat. Scrounger was part of the Vibrant 2019 Festival of Finborough Playwrights and premiered in January 2020. Written by and starring Athena Stevens, the play focuses upon an incident that occurred when Stevens was attempting to travel to Scotland via a flight from London City Airport. Stevens was born with a condition called ‘athetoid cerebral palsy’ which has meant she needs a special wheelchair to be able to get on with her everyday life. After booking onto a flight and confirming with British Airways (BA) that they were able to carry her wheel...

Jury – Park Theatre Company Script Class

26Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

London

Jury – Park Theatre Company Script Class

This brand-new play written by Martin Murphy has been crafted during lockdown and draws on the situation within our legal system where, due to COVID, cases have been put on ice awaiting a decision to resume. To try to tackle the backlog, a digital replacement via Zoom has been introduced and a high-profile case is being tried by jury. Park Theatre have turned what is usually a script class, into a theatre company under the direction of Amy Allen. The pressure is on for the jurors to reach a verdict within 45 minutes. The twelve jurors have heard evidence in a criminal trial and have then try to reach a unanimous verdict. We, the viewer, do not get to hear the evidence, but we rely on hearing the jury discuss the minutiae of the case. This has been classed as a...

18Aug

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

London

Albion – Almeida Theatre

Mike Bartlett’s Albion was first performed in 2017 and this first revival from director Rupert Goold, recorded live in February 2020, features many of the original cast. Very much a country house drama and reminiscent of The Cherry Orchard, it is as much a satire as a re-enactment of middle-class England. It’s a new start for successful businesswoman Audrey Walters (Victoria Hamilton) who has upended her family from the comfort of their London home for a new start in the country home of an old and unspoilt England, and which contains extensive gardens, once the design of a celebrated gardener that she hopes to restore to their original glory with the support of husband Paul (Nicholas Rowe) although daughter Zara (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is less keen on the move away from the capital’s life a...

Fanny and Stella – The Garden Theatre at The Eagle

12Aug

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London

Fanny and Stella – The Garden Theatre at The Eagle

Fairy lights twinkle in the trees, the evening air clings around us and my “Fanny and Stella Special” lemony G&T is refreshing, sipped beneath my face mask (of course). We can all sense excitement in the air; pure, buzzing, expectant joy. Even the delightfully garish bar we had to walk through to reach the Garden Theatre added an extra thrill. We’re out, we’re back, we’re together and we’re about to experience LIVE THEATRE. Special credit must instantly be given to the team behind the show for making this happen and keeping us safe! On a night where theatres around the UK were lit up in red to alert us to the ongoing crisis unveiling within our industry, how amazing to find a team working around the guidelines and putting on a show. “Fanny and Stella” follows the story of Ernest ...

The Secret Love Life of Ophelia – Greenwich Theatre

9Aug

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London

The Secret Love Life of Ophelia – Greenwich Theatre

Steven Berkoff’s The Secret Love Life of Ophelia provides the backstory to one of the Shakespeare’s most tragic couples. Adapted directly in response to the closure of theatres during the coronavirus pandemic, Greenwich Theatre’s new version, directed by James Haddrell, has taken the epistolary nature of the play and converted it into a series of video messages, which makes it a perfect piece of drama for an online production. The piece opens with a clever and imaginative explanation of what is about to be shown, creating a believable world from the off and providing the opportunity for a large cast of forty actors to play the roles of only two characters, alongside a special guest appearance from Dame Helen Mirren. There are some nice special effects which emphasise the technical backs...

31Jul

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London

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – The Globe

As part of the BBC Culture in Quarantine season, we are offered a selection of Shakespeare’s plays performed at two of the UK’s most well known theatres for Shakespeare. Written in 1596, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a regular feature in theatres’ Summer calendars for their Summer season. We have seen many adaptations of this play as theatres become more creative, but this version is like the making a cocktail, the ingredients can be the same, but it is how much of each ingredient that creates its individual flavour. In Emma Rice’s first play as Artistic Director of The Globe, we were treated to a feast of energy and colour. The play positively buzzed with excitement as we experienced an adventurous modernised version of this much-loved play. The play is ...

27Jul

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London

Beethoven’s Fidelio – Royal Opera House

Recorded just prior to lockdown and largely unedited, conductor Antonio Pappano introduces a new production of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, from the Royal Opera House, a story of risk and triumph against a backdrop of revolution, with Tobias Kratzer’s new staging, including some dialogue changes, bringing together the dark reality of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution and the conflicts of the modern age to illuminate Fidelio’s inspiring message of a common humanity. This is very much an opera of two halves with Act One in period as Leonore (Lise Davidsen) attempts to locate her husband, Florestan (David Butt Philip) who is a political prisoner incarcerated in a secret dungeon and subject to torture from the governor of the prison, Don Pizarro (Simon Neal). To secure a ...

25Jul

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London

The Sleeping Beauty – Royal Opera House

‘I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream’. Most people will know the song from Disney’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ but how many people know that the music was actually written 70 years prior to the film’s release and the lyrics were added in 1959 for Disney? Tchaikovsky’s music for the ballet ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ was written in 1889. For anyone who may have never heard of any version of this fairytale before, it tells the story of Princess Aurora. Starting with her christening day, when Carabosse interrupts the ceremony and places a curse on the new princess, meaning she’ll prick her finger on her birthday and die. Luckily, the lilac fairy manages to lessen the curse, to put Aurora and the kingdom into a deep sleep for 100 years, only to be woken by true loves kiss. The ballet consists ...

20Jul

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London

Faust – Royal Opera House

Everybody knows the tale of Faust although Gounod’s popular five-act, Parisian grand opera from 1859 is in fact adapted from Michel Carré’s play ‘Faust et Marguerite’ which was itself based on Part I of Goethe’s epic poem Faust. Very much reflective of the nature of Second-Empire Paris at that time, the obvious question is whether its themes remain relevant and recognisable to a 21st C audience. Director David McVicar wisely recognised that human nature doesn’t really change and the issues of sensuality and hedonism, religion and morality, bourgeois consumption versus socialist redistribution, to name but a few at the heart of this opera, continue to go hand in hand, and his richly layered 2004 production for Royal Opera House brilliantly captured these through the artificial edifices o...

Goodbye The (After) Life of Cook and Moore – Museum of Comedy, London

20Jul

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London

Goodbye The (After) Life of Cook and Moore – Museum of Comedy, London

This reviewer will start this review by admitting that she is old enough to remember Pete and Dud in later episodes of Not Only But Also so it was with both trepidation and anticipation that this production was watched. Produced at London's Museum of Comedy in February 2015 to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Peter Cook's death, the play takes an irreverent and rather surreal look at what might have happened to Pete and Dud in the afterlife. Peter Cook died aged 57, on the 9th January 1995 from a gastrointestinal haemorrhage, most likely due to his years of excessive drinking. Some seven years later on the 27th March 2002, Dudley Moore followed his one time comedy partner to the afterlife after spending fourteen years battling the effects of progressive supranuclear palsy. He was 6...