Cockpit Theatre Archives - North West End UK

4Sep

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

Krapp’s Last Tape – The Cockpit Theatre

On his 69th birthday, Krapp sits alone with his tape recorder and listens back to a recording he made thirty years earlier. Moving between listening, remembering and recording, he encounters his younger self, his memories and the life that has passed between the two voices. Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, performed at The Cockpit Theatre, becomes in Dave Wybrow’s production a remarkably immediate encounter with time. Peter Marinker plays Krapp, but the production also brings another Peter Marinker into the room: his own voice, recorded in 1983 for the BBC radio version of the play. The result is a conversation across more than four decades, between the actor he was and the actor he is now. Picture Courtesy - Cockpit Theatre Website What makes this particularly striking is the ...

2Sep

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Sunrise for the Blind – Cockpit Theatre

Sunrise for the Blind by Lee Thomas doesn’t shy away from the mood of the material. On the Camden Fringe website, it’s described as a “raw, naturalistic portrayal of life in a bleak North Manchester town centre”. Many might give such a prospect a sharp swerve. One friend said to me, “I’m sorry, but I can’t face any more bleakness right now.” It’s a valid sentiment in the current climate, so I was shocked, but buzzed to see busy pews for a 4pm matinee. While some of Grey Brigade were out in force, it was cheering to see a surprisingly young audience lapping up new writing in a fringe theatre. As someone who once squatted in a derelict Hulme council estate in 1990, I regard Manchester as my second home. And as for bleakness, I’m drawn to it like a junkie to a meth pipe. The author ...

16Aug

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Fagbreak – Cockpit Theatre

As its first and only staged performance, ‘Fagbreak’ arrives with the understandable rough edges of new writing, but unfortunately, in its current form, Purnima Rai’s play feels lengthy, unfocused and in drastic need of editing. Following 4 young people working together in a hot-dog takeaway, there are potentially interesting ideas around friendship, work and personal struggle, but these never coalesce into a sufficiently coherent narrative, and at around seventy-five minutes, Director, Estrella Mabika’s production feels considerably longer than the limited material can sustain, scenes frequently outstay their purpose and conversations meander without advancing either character or story. There may be a sharper, more impactful thirty-minute play buried somewhere within the material, ...

9Jul

By Paul AckroydNo Comments

London

Richard III: The Cockpit Theatre

This is an extraordinary production. Directed and starring Nicolas Perez Costa it was per formed to great acclaim at Madrid’s Teatro Infanto Isabel. It is in English but with a largely Spanish speaking cast it is a highly physical, visceral and arresting interpretation of Shakespeare’s classic play about power, ambition and evil. The cast paint their faces white with heavy black make up, along the lines of the Joker in the famous Batman films, and are dressed in dysfunctional costumes of black, translucent tops and heavy ragged cloaks. Something like a cross between grunge and steam punk. The set consists of nothing more than six oil drums and two wooden ladders. These the cast move into the positions required for each scene often standing atop them. The most amazi...

10Nov

By Klervi GavetNo Comments

London

Kodachrome – The Cockpit Theatre

It all starts with a thoroughly intriguing concept. Two performers mix live throughout — two DJs whose lives become romantically intertwined as they share and fight for sonic control. The decks become a site of power, identity, a place to take over, find refuge, or disappear. It’s a strong idea — the music mirroring the shifts in desire and domination, the distortion of a connection that turns toxic. Yet the form never quite finds its rhythm. The techno undercurrent often sits in the background rather than driving the story — a missed opportunity in a show built around pulse and control. Kodachrome captures with painful clarity how easily intensity can be mistaken for intimacy, how validation can slip into addiction, and how modern monsters are made out of the most vulnerable parts ...

<strong>Love Goddess: The Rita Hayworth Musical – Cockpit Theatre</strong>

22Nov

By Anisha PucadyilNo Comments

London

Love Goddess: The Rita Hayworth Musical – Cockpit Theatre

The Rita Hayworth Musical will leave you transfixed by the energetic dance, heady with the drama behind the scenes of Hollywood and mesmerised by the music. Almog Pail’s new production with music arrangements by Logan Medland is a fitting tribute to the charisma of Rita Hayworth. The Cockpit is the most suitable venue for the production, and the actors and dancers engage the audience by weaving the tale of the star intimately. Don’t be deterred by not being familiar with the fame of Rita Hayworth. The play takes you through all the milestones of the creation of the star. In doing so, it also unmasks the glamour of Hollywood. Rita had an unsafe childhood with adults around her making her work from a young age and taking advantage of her. To think in the era of black and white film, Holly...

<strong>Antigone: A Russian play essaying Authoritarianism – Cockpit Theatre</strong>

7Nov

By Akshay RahejaNo Comments

London

Antigone: A Russian play essaying Authoritarianism – Cockpit Theatre

Antigone: Sophocles' Greek tragedy is adapted-rewritten by Evgeniya Palekhova into a compelling two-hander anti-authoritarian debate between the transgressive niece, Antigone and the dictator Creon. The war has ended. Antigone learns that both her brothers are dead. Forced onto opposite sides, they have killed each other in battle. When dictator Creon takes control of the torn and hostile state, he buries one and proclaims the other as a traitor, leaving him to rot in the streets of Thebes. Antigone chooses to bury her brother despite the danger it entails. The director, Ovlyakuli Khodzhakuli is very sensitive to the use of the material in the play. Each property is either destroyed or broken by the end of the play. The continuous smoke and flashing lights appropriately create a post-wa...

7Aug

By Riana HowarthNo Comments

London

The Dumb Man – Cockpit Theatre

Based on Sherwood Anderson’s short story, this play for Camden’s Fringe Festival tells the tale of a man who lives in a world he created in his head. It begins with an elusive man addressing the audience and giving us a poetic introduction to the story. As Richard, the older character comes on stage he becomes consumed by whispering voices and eerie sounds. He gradually calms down and opens a letter which brings the characters of David and Jack to life as they converse across the stage and thus begins the illusory world. Jagoda Kamov’s writing has moments of eloquence and a particularly engaging scene between Jack and the nurse. The motifs of the windows and of the trees gave it a poetic feel and communicated Richard’s desperation to hold onto his illusions, as mirrored by Hardy Gru’s i...

22Mar

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

Interviews

Spotlight on Kristin Milward

In August 2020, playwright Andrei Kureichik witnessed the harrowing scenes of violence that unfolded following the protests against the rigged election results that enabled Alexander Lukashenko to be re-elected. Kureichik (who is a member of the Co-ordination Council of Belarus) decided to document events very much as things happened; in his play, that can be live streamed at home on Saturday 27th March at 7pm. This event is part of a series of monthly readings at The Cockpit giving voice to dissident writers past and present. To book tickets for ‘Insulted’ go to https://www.thecockpit.org.uk/show/dissident_voices. We talked to Kristin Milward who is co-directing and performing in the play, to learn more about it. Kristin, what inspired you to get involved with t...

16Nov

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

London

We Missed You – Voila Festival

‘We Missed You’ is two clowns' interpretation and message of lockdown and a fitting homage to the general feeling that currently pervades. They want to tell us that they missed us and create a warm fuzzy feeling inside audiences. It’s part of Voila Festival or Voila Europe that runs annually at the Cockpit Theatre in London’s Marylebone. But of course, the pandemic has brought it to our homes via the digital world. The enigmatic clowns are Julia Masli and Viggo Venn from Estonia and Norway respectively and are not the circus ring bright wigged & make up of nightmares but a more refreshing (and less scary) Harlequino and Pierrot who have a huge variety of fun costumes and tell us they are more Commedia Dell Arte. This draws on a European tradition where clowns travelled from ma...