COPS is the second play by budding New York born playwright Tony Tortora. It tries to explore the world of Chicago policing in 1957: “a pressure cooker police precinct office in which four cops of different ages, classes and races struggle to work as a team”(director’s programme notes). The production is blessed with an excellent team of five actors who try to … [Read more...]
Kevin Elyot’s Coming Clean at Trafalgar Studios 2 | Review
Kevin Elyot wrote his pre-Aids debut play, almost a tragi-comedy, Coming Clean whilst he was acting at the Bush Theatre where it was first performed in 1982, winning the Samuel Beckett Award for a ‘writer showing particular promise’. It is set in a flat in Kentish Town: “sparse: it has the potential of being tasteful, but lacks the necessary care”. Tony, 33, and … [Read more...]
Nellie Limelight and the Oysters of Time | Review
This is a most unusual, charming, intimate and magical show, supposedly for young people between the ages of 4 and 7, but at the performance I attended there was a child of 2 who was clearly enjoying it as much as everyone else. It is a promenade performance - each scene taking place in a different area of the historic theatre - and all the better because audience … [Read more...]
Priscilla Queen Of The Desert The Musical at Theatre Royal Brighton
“Priscilla is more than a show that makes the audience laugh and cry, it is about tolerance and accepting others for what they are without question”(Mark Goucher – producer). This ‘compilation’ musical is also great fun with an almost unbroken string of 29 hits that the audience immediately recognises and sings or claps along with! Based on the Oscar-winning film … [Read more...]
Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis at Park Theatre | Review
How wonderful to be able to go and see a play where one can sit back, relax and really ENJOY it! This play does exactly what it promises: it entertains, firstly because it is beautifully written and constructed: no scene is a moment too long; secondly because we quickly empathise with all the characters, even if they are larger than life; and thirdly because it is not … [Read more...]
A Taste of Honey at Trafalgar Studios | Review
“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...]