Tuesday, November 5

Tag: Adam Lenson

Public Domain – Vaudeville Theatre
London

Public Domain – Vaudeville Theatre

There is a fresh breeze blowing through the world of musical theatre from the general direction of Forristal and Clarke.  This very on-trend musical does not hold back in its dissection of social media, and as we emerge, bleary eyed from the latest lockdown, it is making a very relevant point. It is all too easy to reach for the smart phone, iPad or laptop to see what is going on outside your front door, when you cannot leave the house, we are sociable animals and need interaction.  Hidden, lurking behind this online socialisation is a world of capitalism, where every click is monitored, every search is logged.   With this in mind, ‘Public Domain’ attempts to give us a musical, collating the words of others, via Tweets, Instagram posts and You Tube videos.  T...
The Sorrows of Satan – Online
REVIEWS

The Sorrows of Satan – Online

The Sorrows of Satan is a musical melodrama filmed in the ballroom in the sumptuous surroundings of a quintessential stately home in the South of England, which, follows a successful run at the Tristan Bates Theatre some time back, now returns digitally, directed by Adam Lenson. The team also behind The Fabulist Fox Sister at Southwark Play House, Luke Bateman and Michael Conley have reimagined the story of Faust in 1920’s London. Geoffrey Tempest played by Luke Bateman is a struggling penniless writer who chances upon a mysterious benefactor in the form of Prince Lucio Rimanez. A tense and provocative mix of comedy, thought provoking and humorous slapstick unravels. This performance is intriguing, sometimes dark and claustrophobic. The set and lighting gave it an authentic at...
Public Domain – Southwark Playhouse
London

Public Domain – Southwark Playhouse

Written and performed by Francesca Forristal & Jordan Paul Clarke. Produced and directed by Adam Lenson. This is a very interesting concept, and the authors are to be commended for their efforts in putting together a very different and challenging piece of theatre. All the text is taken from words spoken and written on the Internet (particularly Facebook) during the past 12 months in an attempt to show a picture of the digital world which we all now inhabit. It is certainly a very fast paced production and describes itself as a “high adrenaline, electronic thrill ride”, which certainly is a fair and accurate description. It could also be described as very dark, giving us a terrifying insight into what the digital world has the potential to become (if it has not already arrived at...
The Fabulist Fox Sister – Southwark Playhouse
London

The Fabulist Fox Sister – Southwark Playhouse

The Fabulist Fox Sister is a 2020 musical that plays with the idea of lies and fake truth in a historical context. Yet the references to today are there. The Fox sisters were 3 siblings who claimed to converse with spirits, becoming star medium performers during their lifetimes and now being cited as some of the founders of the Spiritualism movement. Michael Conley is a smiley and natural performer, as is his character Kate Fox who is reminiscing to an audience about her life in 1892. Kate is intentionally un-mystical, raucously funny, and from the start an unreliable narrator. The narrative is fairly typical of an older character looking back on their life and taking the audience through the events they have experienced chronologically, in Kate’s case she details her and her sister’...