It’s the right kind of setting for a show like A Christmas Carol, the historic Middle Temple Hall, where (according to the show’s programme) Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night had its first performance in 1602 - and this production from Antic Disposition pulls out all the stops to make this an engrossing experience, even without any major surprises in the narrative for … [Read more...]
Review of Soho Cinders at Charing Cross Theatre
Certain productions of certain musicals have their principal cast members (and even the whole company) belting at full volume at a given point or two. What is less common is the situation that I witnessed at this Charing Cross Theatre production of Soho Cinders, where cast members were holding back. I’m still not sure what to make of it: was it simply the method by … [Read more...]
Billionaire Boy at Bloomsbury Theatre | Review
There’s something about the pursuit of money that can, if one is not careful, become all consuming - I doubt many participants in the National Lottery take part purely because a portion of each ticket sale goes towards good causes, for instance. There’s a long-running television quiz show called Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, which has, to its credit, given as much … [Read more...]
Black Beauty at Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room | Review
The thing about the 1877 novel Black Beauty is that, from contemporary lenses, it can seem sanctimonious or at least a little rigid. For instance, there’s a moral point made about resting horses by not taking them out of the stables on Sunday, even if it meant the horse-drawn hackney carriage drivers in London (the motorised hackney carriages of today are colloquially … [Read more...]
Snowflake by Mike Bartlett at Kiln Theatre | Review
I know from indirect experience that there are people at the time of writing who are no longer on speaking terms with one another because, like Andy (Elliot Levey) and his daughter Maya (Ellen Robertson), they held differing viewpoints on That Referendum (yes, I am slightly concerned that if I mentioned the ‘B’ word, you might immediately stop reading). Set on the … [Read more...]
STORIES: Exploring Matters of the Young Mind | Review
Do some of us become, at least to some extent, like our own parents? Even if I recognise some of the vocabulary adopted by today’s teenagers and young adults, I don’t use such terms in everyday conversation. Sure enough, ‘HMU’ and ‘peng’ come up in Stories: Exploring Matters of the Young Mind, and it is of some relief that there are millennial characters in the show … [Read more...]
A Little Princess at Drayton Arms Theatre | Review
There are various details in the story of A Little Princess that a theatrical adaptation of the novel will choose to emphasise, simplify for dramatic purposes, or otherwise omit altogether. Here, in this new production by Rachael Bellis, Sara Crewe (Catherine Hiscock), the ‘princess’ of the show’s title, seems to adjust quite adequately to the British climate, having … [Read more...]
Teenage Dick at the Donmar Warehouse | Review
There’s a gag in Teenage Dick thanks to Richard Gloucester’s (Daniel Monks) hemiplegia (Google it if you must) about running. Not the same as a running gag, y’see, because, as the play’s title and lead character’s name implies, this is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III, and therefore the guy ‘runs’ for ‘senior class president’ in an election at Roseland High … [Read more...]
Blood Orange at the Old Red Lion Theatre | Review
For many years I believed in the principle that the only sort of ‘stupid question’ is the one that isn’t asked. But that was put to the test when someone once asked me, in all seriousness, what time the local A&E department closes. I suspect it’s the kind of story Amy (Tania Amsel) would like, given her ability to see the humour in frustrating situations. The busy … [Read more...]