London Theatre Archives - North West End UK

24Sep

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Present Laughter – Richmond Theatre

There is something wonderfully appropriate about a comedy concerned with theatrical excess being given a production that barely seems willing to sit still. Lindsay Posner’s ‘Present Laughter’ arrives at Richmond Theatre with energy to spare, giving Noël Coward’s comedy a confident contemporary shake-up without losing the delicious absurdity at its heart. At the centre is Tracy-Ann Oberman as Geri Essendine, a celebrated actress whose success has brought her everything except the possibility of being left alone. Her home is less a sanctuary than a human traffic junction, with friends, employees, admirers, lovers and unwanted visitors passing through while Geri attempts to maintain control over a spectacularly crowded life. The production’s most significant departure from Coward’s orig...

CSI: Crime Scene improvisation – Underbelly Boulevard

22Sep

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

CSI: Crime Scene improvisation – Underbelly Boulevard

Following their success at the Edinburgh Fringe, here comes CSI: Crime Scene Improvisation at the Underbelly Boulevard in Soho London. There’s been a murder and no one knows why, how, what or who did it. It’s up to the audience to decide … everything. Admittedly, I think my audience was a little shy so after some coaxing from our Detective, we finally decided on our scenario and off we go. I wasn’t expecting as much audience participation however it was really welcomed, especially after we had warmed up to a much more involved experience. We followed the actors through the initial discovery, world building scenes to finally coming to the hot seat section where we got to ask our questions. We also got to decide which of our suspects are the most suspicious and therefore definitely did...

17Sep

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

Sufficient Merit – Canal Café Theatre

Sufficient Merit is a new play by Emma Paige Baker. This short play focusses in on four actors Tess, Emma Baker, Eleanor, Alia Lahlou and Ted, T’ai Hartley and their landlord Bob played by all three characters. Oh, and a fictional Chihuahua; whose lives are entwined through their work, their living arrangements and a shared desire to create the next best play. Their world is turned upside down when Bob delivers the bad news, the not so bad news and the good news to the trio. Their home, and theatre company is under threat from an external investor, AI creatives that could replace everything they had ever known. The foundation of this play is centred around the real challenges faced by the actors of trying to put on a play “which keeps getting roadblocked” by bad news. So, they decide...

17Sep

By Paul AckroydNo Comments

London

Deep-Heat Rivalry – The Other Palace

This is a farcical musical parody of the popular Canadian TV series Heated Rivalry. It is about two ice hockey players who, while playing for competing teams, actually have a great homosexual attraction for each other. The writers Trevor Ashley and Phil Scott make no claims other than their intention to write an outrageous, adult, raunchy comedy. It was clear from the press night audience that this is exactly what most of them had come for, but for anyone unfamiliar with the Canadian TV series the point of it was baffling. From the very beginning the tone was set by the MC (Ross Chisari) in the role of “Puck”, dressed in a costume revealing his pectoral muscles and bottom. He was hyper-camp with a self-satisfied smug expression most of the time, which rapidly became wearing. Casting him...

16Sep

By Phil MeikleNo Comments

London

Man to Man – The Royal Court

Casting call: Oscar-winning Hollywood actress required for an 85-minute solo performance. Costume and make-up: predominantly a string vest, bright red Y-fronts and boots. Yellow stains under the armpits, white paint encrusted across the face and body, and a requirement to guzzle beer and be showered in it. Let's be honest, there's only really one Oscar-winning actress with the nerve to take on this role eight times a week. Enter the genre-defying Tilda Swinton. Returning to the stage for the first time in nearly 40 years, Swinton revisits the role of Ella/Max, a woman who assumes the identity of her deceased husband, a crane operator, by wearing his clothes in order to survive the Nazi regime. Man to Man explores gender fluidity, conformity and grief, but Ella is denied the opportuni...

The Seven Deadly Sins and The Human Voice – Charing Cross Theatre

14Sep

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

The Seven Deadly Sins and The Human Voice – Charing Cross Theatre

I am not an opera regular, so I arrived at this double bill with a certain curiosity about what it might feel like to encounter two works from very different European traditions, Germany and France, almost a century after they were written. This contemporary staging by Alejandro Bonatto offers an accessible entry point, presenting Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s The Seven Deadly Sins alongside Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice. Synopsis: In The Seven Deadly Sins, Anna travels through American cities in pursuit of enough money to build a house, negotiating the expectations of her family and the moral compromises required to survive. The Human Voice follows Elle through a single telephone conversation with a former lover, as an attempt at connection gradually exposes emot...

14Sep

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

Night City – Southwark Playhouse

There’s no doubt that working conditions and employee power have slowly eroded in the past few decades. Secure jobs that are well paid and fulfilling are dwindling like ice caps. Decent employment options are likely to die out with the generation that once enjoyed them. Everyone ditched mini cab firms and black Hackney cabs for the cheap convenience of Uber, which is no longer the budget option it once was. Now, there are few alternatives to Uber, which seems to have a monopoly on the market and appears to be taking advantage of both drivers and customers. In the States, working as an app-based delivery driver is considered one of the deadliest occupations. A landmark report by the advocacy group Gig Workers Rising documented at least 80 app-based workers were murdered on the job betwee...

14Sep

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

Fire Fire – Arcola Theatre

John Webber’s Fire Fire brings Paige, a middle-class queer climate activist of Nigerian heritage, and Eddie, a white retired oil worker, together at a country park in Essex. Their opposing positions on climate protest repeatedly bring them into conflict, until they recognise a shared struggle to be heard and decide to take drastic action together. There is something genuinely fiery about Fire Fire. Over its 80-minute runtime, the production sustains an extraordinary sense of urgency, not simply through the writing but through the physical and vocal energy of Gabrielle Brooks and Chris Simmons. Conversations arrive at a blistering pace, with exchanges that feel as though they have been waiting to happen. The intensity is felt in the bodies of the two performers as much as in the words th...

Bigfoot Ripped My Dog in Half I Saw It – Soho Theatre

11Sep

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Bigfoot Ripped My Dog in Half I Saw It – Soho Theatre

Flying high after a fourth Fringe First award at Edinburgh, NYC duo Xhloe and Natasha bring Bigfoot Ripped My Dog in Half I Saw It to Soho Theatre for a victory lap. Having previously seen the pair perform What If They Ate The Baby? in the theatre’s studio space, I was delighted to see their unique blend of clowning, physical comedy and social commentary shine on Soho Theatre’s main stage. The extra space lets them play more with movement and allows a giant STOP sign, text projections on the back wall, and an imposing representation of Bigfoot to offer extra visual intrigue. Set in a small mountain town in the US, Bigfoot introduces us to a pair of teenagers who pretend they’ve spotted Bigfoot in the area to cover up their own misdeeds. This singular lie soon spirals into a web o...

Woody Sez: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie – Underbelly Soho

11Sep

By Carole GordonNo Comments

London

Woody Sez: The Life and Music of Woody Guthrie – Underbelly Soho

A massive hit at the Edinburgh Fringe, this show is a timeless, joyous, authentic exploration of the life and times of Woody Guthrie, "the original folk hero" (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame). Guthrie was born in 1912 into extreme poverty in Oklahoma, the family struggling to make ends meet after a catastrophic house fire. When he grew up, he would find scraps of work throughout the Great Depression, but often there wasn't sufficient work even in the orchards of California and desperate families would find themselves in debt to the Company Shop. He lost his mother to mental illness, which was eventually diagnosed as the Huntingdon's Disease that would also cruelly afflict him in later life. Having sung songs at his mother's knee, he took his guitar all over the US, playing songs of social prot...