London Archives - Page 8 of 95

25Feb

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

King Lear – Almedia Theatre

Tour de force contextualising King Lear in the here and now. Yaël Farber's directed recreations of Shakespeare have become synonymous with memorable action from the actors and actresses, moody lights and deep witnessing of self and others. The earthy elements of the wind, rain and soil are brought alive on stage with outstanding craftsmanship. Max Perryment's music is brought centre stage by the talented actors and actresses who break into songs and by the infinite variety of instruments on stage and in the background. The violinist often contoured in inverted postures, usually a background in position but centre stage by adding additional flavourful notes. Set designer Merle Hensel's delicate shimmering cascading fine chains curtain provides an aesthetic backgroun...

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 e...

25Feb

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

JAB – Finborough Theatre

Married for 29 years, Anne and Don think they know each other well. They dance to their favourite music, share too many bottles of wine, muddle along in their empty-nest lives. Anne is an administrator with the NHS, Don runs a niche vintage shop that makes little money, leaving Anne as the main breadwinner. It works for them - until the pandemic hits and the country goes into lockdown. As Covid ravages the world, it also shows up the cracks in the marriage. Anne continues to work long hours from home while Don has to close his shop and lazes around reading the Daily Mail and soaking up far-right conspiracy theories. It's just the flu, he insists. It will go away in a month, he says, parroting what he's read in the tabloids. Irritated by his increasing dependence on Anne, Don's sexis...

24Feb

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

Othello – Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

Director Ola Ince rendition of Shakespeare’s dark tragedy The authentic Shakespearean Othello ‘Moorish’ features as a top ranking detective police officer in the London metropolitan force, which offers up the notion that this is not your ordinary version of Othello. The opening scene introduces the characters Othello Ken Nwosu’s and Poppy Gilbert as his wife, Desdemona entwined in love a marriage vows. Shakespearean enthusiasts will recognise the familiar characters of the devious hateful Iago portrayed by Ralph Davis and Cassio played by Oli Higginson. References to police dialogue and officers switching from uniformed police, in body armour merges at times quite clumsily with the Shakespearean text, which at times feels wrong but as the sequence of events u...

24Feb

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

London

Stitches – The Hope Theatre

My 19-year-old son has a teddy, or should I say a rag that used to be a teddy; I also had a favourite teddy (shh, I’ve still got him in a drawer at home), and for most of us, it is the first possession that we learn to care for. Stitches, turns the story around, and the teddy becomes the narrator/obsessive observer of Chloe the baby, Teddy’s baby, and the story is born at Chloe’s birth. Teddy was bought as a present for Chloe, and Teddy has rejection anxiety – will Chloe want me? Am I cute enough? He needn’t have worried, Chloe immediately cuddles him and squeezes his ear - the beginning of a life journey together! Written and performed by Jonathan Blakeley, this play is an exploration of commitment, to love someone through the good times and the bad. It’s...

Lemn Sissay – Poetry Club at the Coronet Theatre

24Feb

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Lemn Sissay – Poetry Club at the Coronet Theatre

In 2016, I shared a green room with Lemn Sissay. We were both guests on BBC 2’s Newsnight. I’d been roped in at the last minute to discuss ‘bisexual erasure’. Sissay was on the show to highlight National Poetry Day and to mark the occasion, he delivered a blistering and hypnotic performance of ‘Architecture’. It’s a poem about awesome potential, chaos and evolution. Look it up YouTube. One minute and nineteen seconds that will leave you breathless. To be honest, I was more excited about being in a room with this exceptional poet, than being on live television or getting grilled by Evan Davis. Lemn Sissay is a BAFTA-nominated, award-winning one-man dynamo. He’s written collections of poetry and plays, while his memoir My Name Is Why was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. His work ...

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 ...

22Feb

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Hadestown – Lyric Theatre

In recent years, the West End has welcomed musicals based on films, books, and even historical events. But Greek mythology was yet to receive the big-budget musical treatment — that is, until Hadestown came stomping into the Lyric Theatre, where it is currently running until December 2024. Created by singer-songwriter Anäis Mitchell as a folk-opera back in 2006, Hadestown has been on a shapeshifting journey — including a sold-out run at the National Theatre in 2018 — which culminated in the Tony Award-winning production that took Broadway by storm in 2019. As soon as its West End transfer was announced last year, directed by Rachel Chavkin, musical theatre fans were bubbling with anticipation to discover whether this new production would live up to its Herculean hype. A story fundam...

20Feb

By Eleanor HallNo Comments

London

Dear Octopus – National Theatre

This was a tender play about family dynamics which takes its title from a speech in the second act that praises the family unit as a ‘dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape’. On the eve of World War Two, we bear witness to the reunion of the Randolph family, which forces them and their servants to confront the elements of romance, hatred, jealousy and shame that underscore their interactions. I enjoyed the wit that laced through the piece, as is characteristic of Dodie Smith’s writing. This was present in the conversation of the family quarrels, but also in repeated motifs, i.e. the fact that each character is aware of Fenny’s love for Nicholas, which added a comical touch to the action. A primary issue was the play’s dated narrative; for instance, the reason for Cynth...

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 Willi...