Written in 1893, this was a relatively early work of Shaw’s, and came to be known as one of his problem plays. Not because its content was obscure; it was in fact quite the opposite, dealing plainly with the admittedly complex morality of a thriving commercial practice of the day: prostitution. It was the issue itself that was the problem. The Lord Chamberlain of the day - in effect the nation’s censor of publicly available material - took a dim view of the author’s characteristically … [Read more...]
The Crucible by Arthur Miller at the Olivier Theatre
Being one of Arthur Miller’s best-made and most challenging plays, The Crucible is also one of his most frequently performed. I was going to say “revived,” but that would carry the implication that it had somehow been allowed to die since its completion in 1953. It had of course done no such thing, even though this full-blooded production at the National Theatre is the first major UK one for some years. The play was the third in an astoundingly fruitful period for the author in the postwar … [Read more...]
The Gretchen Question at The Master Shipwright’s House, Deptford
The stage location of this urgent and eccentric play from the production company Fuel is nothing if not dramatic. Here we are in the riverfront grounds of the Master Shipwright’s House in Deptford, on the underside of the Thames’s downward bulge around the Isle of Dogs. The Cutty Sark is a few hundred yards east along the bank, and just beyond it are the Old Royal Naval College and the National Maritime Museum. Echoes and emblems of mighty journeys are everywhere in Melly Still’s and Max … [Read more...]
Michael Morpurgo’s Private Peaceful at Richmond Theatre
This tour of the play based on Michael Morpurgo’s 2003 novel for older children has an awful timeliness about it, given the present war in Europe and its enduring images of destruction. Like his earlier story War Horse, which won global fame on the back of the National Theatre’s 2007 production, it focuses on the lives, and deaths, of individuals caught up in the war which was allegedly the one to end all others. This it does with a documentary focus that is both merciless and … [Read more...]
The Da Vinci Code at Richmond Theatre | Review
Dan Brown’s bestselling book was never one for giving its secrets away lightly. Indeed, this was, and is, a substantial part of its appeal. The readers have their work cut out, and the pleasure they experience when/if they make it to the end is a little like that of completing a fair but fiendish crossword. Bringing its convolutions onto the stage was always going to be an ambitious project in its own right, not least because of the massive footprint left by Ron Howard’s 2006 film version … [Read more...]
Catch Me If You Can at Richmond Theatre | Review
Even the title poses problems since there was a 2002 Steven Spielberg film with the same name, starring Tom Hanks and Leonardo Dicaprio. It told the allegedly true story of a prolific teenage con artist becoming a multimillionaire by posing as a Georgia doctor, a PanAm pilot and a Louisiana parish prosecutor. Nothing to do with this stage play by Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert, except that both bear an obsession with duplicity and illusion, rather as a stick of rock bears lettering, and a … [Read more...]
Cluedo at Richmond Theatre | Review
Perhaps there has been another board game that has enjoyed fresh life as a stage play, but off the top of my head, I can’t think of one. All right, Chess, but that was a musical. Cluedo, you may or may not remember, was a postwar sensation, a family-friendly whodunit centred on finding the identity of the murderer in a group of weekend revellers at a country house. It was the inspired invention of a musician called David Pratt who, according to his daughter, would spice family jaunts … [Read more...]