It’s nearly a quarter of a century ago that the playwright Shelagh Stephenson scored an enduring hit with this early play at Hampstead. Round the world it went, justly praised for its portrayal of siblings struggling with each other and themselves in the wake of their mother’s death. With hurtful legacies at the heart of their gathering, memory itself justified its place in the title and became a virtual, controversial character in its own right. This it still does in a witty, unsparing … [Read more...]
Blue Remembered Hills by Dennis Potter | Review
It’s one of the strangest nights out at the theatre. You’re met at a railway station in the far east of London by a group of ushers who load you into a plush coach and spirit you out into the rear end of beyond. If you’ve never come this way before, you’re in good company, for you now enter Thamesmead Waterfront, one of the capital’s last redoubts of true wilderness. A chain of roundabouts takes you up towards the crook of the Thames and the peninsular land to the east of Woolwich Arsenal. … [Read more...]
Twelfth Night at The Globe Theatre 2021 | Review
With its climate of chaos and misrule, it’s an apt choice of play for our times. Comedy it may be but, as with much of Shakespeare’s work in this mode, darkness and terror are everywhere. It would be strange if this were not the case here, since 1603, when it was premiered, found London struggling under the tyranny of the plague and losing some 30,000 of its citizens to it in the course of the year. In such a context, the play’s subtitle, What You Will, comes into its own. Given the binge … [Read more...]
Big Big Sky by Tom Wells at Hampstead Theatre | Review
Everything is coming to an end round here: the summer season, the tea-room’s trade, youth itself, the whole country. For this is the tiny village of Kilnsea, set so far out on England’s north-east coast that the great sea-port of Hull is twenty-five miles away and comes over as a remote western presence. The buses don’t get out this far anymore. The playwright Tom Wells knows just what, or rather where, he is talking about, having grown up in Kilnsea, and his play is awash with the … [Read more...]
Hello Georgie, Goodbye Best at The Space | Review
As if there weren’t already enough drama in his life, off the field and on, an intriguing stage play tackles, firmly but fairly, a lost weekend at the height of the young Best’s renown and the depth of his despair. The premise is stark and true. One Saturday in 1971, instead of turning up to play for Manchester United, he is to be found - by us, at least - in the north London flat of a young woman. Not a rare event for such a Lothario, you might think, except that this particular young woman, … [Read more...]