“Who... in 1958 was writing about an unmarried pregnant teenager, her gay friend, a gentle sexy black sailor and a single mother?” The answer is of course Shelagh Delaney who sent an unsolicited draft of a play from her home in Salford to Joan Littlewood at Stratford East. The result was, after much rewriting heavily ‘suggested’ by Littlewood, A Taste of Honey - … [Read more...]
One Million Tiny Plays About Britain by Craig Taylor at Jermyn Street Theatre
A totally delightful and unusual evening! Craig Taylor is a Canadian who began ‘overhearing’ people’s conversations when he worked in a hardware store. He wrote some of them down, and continued doing this when he moved to London. Eventually they began to be published in The Guardian magazine and were so popular that he took 95 of them and published them in book … [Read more...]
Amélie The Musical at The Other Palace | Review
Amélie is a charming, whimsical, musical, based on a 2001 French Film, which was originally (2015) staged in California, and then on Broadway where it ran for only two months. It was revived at the Watermill Theatre Bagnor earlier this year and has been touring the UK prior to landing up at The Other Palace for its Christmas offering (with a suggestion of being … [Read more...]
An Act of God at The Vaults, London | Review
An Act of God was first seen in New York in 2015, written by the American David Javerbaum and based on his '@TheTweetOfGod' which has over six million followers. Some of his tweets are quoted on a double page spread in the programme. The ‘play’ concerns a dissatisfied deity who, weary of the original ten commandments, decides to deliver a fresh set of rules for the … [Read more...]
The Greatest Play In The History Of The World at Trafalgar Studios
I LOVED this play! It is very funny, very poignant - you quickly feel as if Julie Hesmondhalgh is performing just for you, so involving is the story she tells, aided by the intimate space of the theatre. I won’t trouble to try to explain the title, as it is dealt with in the script, but it takes you on a journey that starts and ends in a quiet, unassuming house, on … [Read more...]
Stray Dogs by Olivia Olsen at Park Theatre | Review
Stray Dogs is a new three-handed full-length play by first-time playwright Olivia Olsen, and as such is a very creditable piece of writing, for a ‘student’ work. It concerns the relationship that the Ukrainian poet Anna Akhmatova supposedly had both with the Russian British philosopher Isaiah Berlin and with Joseph Stalin, and, according to the production flyer, … [Read more...]
Review of Mary Poppins at the Prince Edward Theatre
Mary Poppins is an unashamedly old-fashioned, feel-good musical, at times very pantomimic in style - ideal family Christmas-time entertainment for children of all ages, especially in Cameron Mackintosh’s lavish production at the Prince Edward Theatre, where it was first seen in 2004. There can be few who do not know the Sherman Brothers songs, most of which are … [Read more...]
Sydney & The Old Girl at Park Theatre | Review
Eugene O’Hare’s second full length play, Sydney and the Old Girl is a wickedly funny, black comedy, showcasing Miriam Margolyes’ talents to the full, whilst also providing meaty roles for the other two actors in this three-handed play. Sydney Stock has lived for over fifty years cooped up with his mother Nell in her grubby East End home. Their only reason for … [Read more...]
As You Like It – Royal Shakespeare Company – The Barbican Theatre
Kimberley Sykes’ bright and breezy, very physical, production of As You Like It has opened the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Autumn season at the Barbican. The full width and depth of the expansive stage is imaginatively used by designer Stephen Brimson Lewis, the single set gradually seeming to grow over time so that it is always not only interesting to look at but … [Read more...]