Monday, December 22

REVIEWS

Dracula – Richmond Theatre
London

Dracula – Richmond Theatre

When actor James Gaddas received an offer to work on a television documentary exploring the origins of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it sent him into an obsessive investigation to discover the truth behind the myth. Such is the premise of this new adaptation, in which Gaddas is not only the writer but performer of fifteen different characters. Bringing Stoker’s novel to life is something many others have done from the days of the silent screen: if you haven’t read the book, you have surely seen one of the film, television or stage adaptations. But what if Stoker had really meant to write a work of non-fiction about vampiric activity, and what if an investigation into his real intentions is cursed? As Gaddas tells the story of his interaction with documentary evidence and a trail which takes...
An Evening without Kate Bush – Waterside Arts
North West

An Evening without Kate Bush – Waterside Arts

Well, I expected this show to be a straightforward tribute to Kate Bush – how wrong I was, it was so much more. I would probably describe it as more like a comedy show with Kate Bush songs thrown in. It did help if (like the majority of the audience) you were an ardent fan of Kate Bush herself, although this was by no means an essential pre-requisite for enjoying the show. The lights dimmed and a darkly clad Sarah-Louise Young appeared on the stage to the sounds of Hounds of Love and this initiated a section of audience participation where a couple of willing volunteers were enticed onto the stage to sing backing vocals to the song Cloud bursting, which had all the audience waving their arms in time to the music. This was only the start of an evening which emphasised her amazing rapport...
Don Carlos – The Metropolitan Opera, New York
REVIEWS

Don Carlos – The Metropolitan Opera, New York

The Met Opera’s original five-act French version of Verdi’s epic opera of doomed love among royalty is in fact an amended version of the 1867 Paris edition with some omissions as well as the addition of elements from later Italian versions, but if the intention was to serve up the best version possible then there is no doubt that this comes pretty close with the magnificence of its delivery. Photo: Ken Howard It's a tough story with far too real parallels to events unfolding in the Ukraine which serves to reinforce the piece’s uncompromising assessment of the ways of human nature as we are thrust via a love triangle into the courtly world of 16th Century Spain complete with its religious Inquisition and destructive suppression of protest in Flanders. At almost five hours, there is...
The Marriage Of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein – Jermyn Street Theatre
London

The Marriage Of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein – Jermyn Street Theatre

Everything about Edward Einhorn's "The Marriage of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein" is an enigma. Is it comedy, tragedy, tragi-comedy? Farce?  All of the above?  It's a play within a play within a play in which everyone (audience included) has been invited to the wedding of Gertrude and Alice. The circles in which the two literary superstars of their time moved means that their guest list includes those who are regulars at their Paris salon. There is Picasso (along with one of his wives and two of his mistresses), T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and the less-than-welcome Ernest Hemingway who turns up uninvited with his wife and a matador pal. With such exalted company, the conversation naturally revolves about the nature of art, genius, fame, sex and love. Love is certainly...
The Killer’s Conscience – The Black-E
North West

The Killer’s Conscience – The Black-E

City Theatre’s latest offering is an original psychological thriller written by Joe Gordon and directed by Carly Fisher, where friends Sean (Louis Cashin-Harris) and Elliot (Leo Hewitson) and his girlfriend Toni (Eleanor Smith) hang out at Darrius’ (John Ball) bar. At work, Sean is confronted by his old school bully Lewis (Joe Gordon) looking for a refund but doesn’t receive the expected support from manager Max (Leanne Cooney). It’s clear Lewis’ behaviour runs in his family when we later meet Isiah (Johnny Sedgwick-Davies) before things turn from bad to worse for Sean when he discovers sister Charlie (Demi Wilson) is now dating Lewis. What more could possibly go wrong for him? Well, a disciplinary with area manager David (Kieran Foster) is the least of his worries when things take a...
Psychodrama – Battersea Arts Centre
London

Psychodrama – Battersea Arts Centre

Sleepwalk Collective and Christopher Brett Bailey’s experimental piece is a fusion of titillation, poetic imagery and philosophical exploration. From the get-go, there is an overt sense that we are audience members with an assumed passive role, and we are reminded of the undulating relationship between the collective and our anonymity. It feels like we are slowly spacing out into a nebulous, creative void. There is terror and excitement and freshness, and we feel oddly safe as we enter it, guided by the two characters (Christopher and Lara) who feel just as lost as we are. Fragmented and episodic, the script is disorientating as it whispered through headphones, both soothing and unsettling like an ASMR. Its ambiguous storyline begins to piece together later in the play. With evocative, ...
Who You Are and What You Do – Bread and Roses Theatre
London

Who You Are and What You Do – Bread and Roses Theatre

A children’s birthday party-cum-carnival is the vibe the audience gets as they enter a room full of confetti, balloons and streamers. You’re in for a rollercoaster ride of clapping away to Pharrell Williams’s ‘Happy’ before holding your breath as unexpected events unfold, bursting in sprouts of uncomfortable laughter and circling back to a joyful singing of “Happy Birthday.” Written by Hugh Dichmont, the play was the Top three winner of The Bread & Roses Playwriting Award 2019. Opening with an energetic clowning act, the show quickly turns the mood around and dives into darker themes. Five stories, seeking happiness in different ways, unfold part by part as a montage, except they never fully come together. The fragments are played in a different order in each show. They seem general...
Murder Ballad – Forum Theatre, Stockport
North West

Murder Ballad – Forum Theatre, Stockport

The Northern Premier of this new musical originally performed in New York in 2012 and moved to the West End in 2016. Directed by Paul Wilson and assisted by Lucy Worthington. Murder Ballard is the story of a love triangle set in New York in the 1980s and is told in the format of a one act rock musical lasting about 80 minutes. Like all love triangles, this one goes wrong in a most spectacular manner. As my mother used to say, “It’ll all end in tears!” and it certainly does. Sara (played in a very sensual way by Heather Schofield, taking on the role played by Kerry Ellis in the West End version of the show) falls for two different men. Firstly, there is bad boy Tom (Matt Corrigan), the owner of the Kings Club bar, with whom Sara experiences the excitement she craves, until he gets bor...
Mugabe, My Dad and Me – Traverse Theatre
Scotland

Mugabe, My Dad and Me – Traverse Theatre

‘Stories breed stories’ actor Tonderai Munyevu tells the audience as he draws his one-man production towards its close. For the past 90 minutes Munyevu has taken us on a journey, from Soho to Harare, Zimbabwe, where he confronts the presence of the men who's shaped his life, one of whom who shaped a nation; his father and the Zimbabwean leader, Robert Mugabe. Munyevu takes to the stage, as though he were a stand-up comic, settling us all in for a night of one liners, merely scraping the surface of his internal motions when a punter in the local he was working at in London asked him where he was from, before spouting their opinions about Zimbabwe, the so-called ‘breadbasket of Africa’. This infuriating exchange forms the basis of Munyenvu’s meanderings through memory and history, it’s a ...
Fatal Attraction – Richmond Theatre
London

Fatal Attraction – Richmond Theatre

From screen to stage, Fatal Attraction does make a long journey, making it relevant to a 21st-century audience after its release on screen 35 years ago. Written by the original screenwriter James Dearden, directed by Loveday Ingram, the play is indeed “a psychological thriller” and “a cautionary tale” as described by Ingram and Dearden respectively. The play opens suddenly with a swift shift in light and a suspenseful sound effect hushing a chatty audience and immediately demanding engagement. Dan Gallagher (Oliver Farnworth) is a lawyer, happily married to Beth Gallagher (Louise Redknapp). When Beth and Ellen (voiced by Charlotte Holden), their daughter, visit out of town, Dan’s casual drink with Alex Forrest (Susie Amy) at a recently opened bar turns into a one-night stand. What occur...