Jonathan Slinger Archives - North West End UK

Waiting for Godot – Theatre Royal Haymarket

9Dec

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

London

Waiting for Godot – Theatre Royal Haymarket

Director James MacDonald breathes new life into Samuel Beckett’s absurdist 1953 tragicomedy about two down at heel men waiting for a mysterious figure to appear, with a fresh and engaging interpretation that focuses more on the inherent humour within the play rather than just the disconsolate existentialism with which it is usually associated. Opening to a dystopian landscape bereft of any positive discernible feature other than a leafless tree, we encounter Estragon/Gogo (Lucian Msamati) and Valdimir/Didi (Ben Whishaw), as they wait for Godot. Whilst their connection to each other is unstated, there is an endearing affection between them that pervades their ongoing conversations about something and nothing, which distracts from the obvious bleakness of their everyday lives. The appe...

25Sep

By Riana HowarthNo Comments

London

Waiting for Godot – Theatre Royal Haymarket

Well, these are two very well-spoken "tramps". A wired Didi (Ben Whishaw) jolts and flourishes across the space, amidst a more weighted, stony Gogo (Lucian Msamati). The two are equally as confounded as each other, torn between wavering uncertainty and resignation to the fact. As the title of the play reveals, they are waiting for Godot. In Beckett's classic, we are not entirely sure who Godot is or why he is being waited for, and neither, as it seems, are the characters. Whishaw and Msamati play their respective characters so beautifully. It is like watching a dance - their responsivity and spontaneity is glorious, and they find musicality in the repetition. This much studied play has plenty of meat to chew on. The real juiciness of it, as brought out by Whishaw and Msamati ...

2Nov

By Aditi DalalNo Comments

London

A View from the Bridge – Rose Theatre

The Arthur Miller classic was first staged as a one act production on Broadway in 1955. This latest co-production with Headlong Theatre, Bolton Octagon, Chichester Festival Theatre and the Rose Theatre sees it in its full-length version, with the play's central themes resonating just as powerfully in today's world. Set in a working-class Italian American neighbourhood in Brooklyn, the story revolves around the complex dynamics within the Carbone family. Eddie Carbone (Jonathan Slinger) is a longshoreman who becomes increasingly obsessed with his niece, Catherine (Rachelle Diedericks). Tensions escalate when two Italian immigrants, Marco (Tommy Sim’aan) and Rodolpho (Luke Newberry), move in with the Carbone family, leading to a dramatic confrontation as Eddie's jealousy and cultural clas...

A View From The Bridge – Octagon Theatre

14Sep

By Louise KershawNo Comments

North West

A View From The Bridge – Octagon Theatre

It isn’t often that one goes to see a production and as the final ‘curtain’ falls the audience appear to be engaged in a collective holding of breath, momentarily stunned to silence. This was the case tonight as the Octagon Theatre Bolton launched its Autumn/Winter season with the Arthur Miller masterpiece ‘A View From the Bridge’. Set in the Italian - American neighborhood of Red Hook in Brooklyn, New York in the 1950s, this tragic play tells the story of Eddie Carbone, an ordinary working man who develops an improper and obsessional love for Catherine, his wife Beatrice’s orphaned niece, and to whom he has been a father figure since her childhood. This obsession is put under unbearable strain when Beatrice’s cousins, Marco and Rodolpho illegally enter the country from their work starv...

31Jul

By Zoё MeeresNo Comments

London

Oleanna – Arts Theatre

Oleanna first came to the stage in 1992 in the United States and 1993 in the UK. At the time, high profile sexual harassment cases had captured the attention of the US audience in particular, and heightened sensitivities meant that the play – which explores the shifting power dynamic between a female university student and her male professor – was received as controversial. Nearly 30 years later, although our senses are maybe somewhat dulled to some of the nuances within the piece, we’re still having the same conversations and realising the full extent to which sexism in all its guises, male privilege and abuse of power have shaped and determined the world around us. We meet John and his student Carol in John’s perfectly angular, book lined office. The set is incredibly pleasing t...

OLEANNA – West End transfer and tour for David Mamet’s provocative play

21Apr

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

OLEANNA – West End transfer and tour for David Mamet’s provocative play

Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Jonathan Church Productions’ critically acclaimed production of David Mamet’s highly provocative drama Oleanna, directed by Lucy Bailey, will tour the UK this Summer from 8th June, visiting Cambridge, Bath, Southampton and Malvern, before transferring to the West End’s Arts Theatre, London from 21st July to 23rd October 2021. The production will star Rosie Sheehy as Carol and Jonathan Slinger as John, reprising their roles from its sell-out run at Theatre Royal Bath’s Ustinov Studio last December. When Oleanna opened nearly thirty years ago, it caused uproar amongst audiences from New York to London. Set on an American campus, a seemingly innocuous conversation between a college professor and his female student warps into a nightmare which threatens...