Venue and play are perfectly matched in Orpheus Descending at the Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre. The play is set in a store with confectionery so the ex-Menier Chocolate Factory evokes wonderfully the atmosphere of such an establishment. We feel like Orpheus descending as we make our way down to the auditorium. Its pitch black. Brilliantly the designer Jonathan … [Read more...]
About John OBrien
Unsung by Unsung Collective at King’s Head Theatre
Unsung asks the question why are women so underrepresented, undervalued and under-acknowledged? It homes in on the four remarkable women - Countess Ada Lovelace, inventor of the first computer, Sophia Jex-Blake, the first female Doctor, Lillian Bader, the first black woman to serve in the RAF and Andrea Dunbar, working-class female playwright. Although their lives … [Read more...]
BED PEACE: The Battle of Yohn and Joko at Cockpit Theatre
This play tells the story of the greatest secular protest song of the 20th Century: Give Peace A Chance. The clever pun in the title Bed Peace (it’s for peace and it was written in bed) refers to the extraordinary context of the songs genesis. Its 1969 and John Lennon and Yoko Ono have taken to their bed in protest against the Vietnam War. With their mantra of Make … [Read more...]
John and Beatrice at the Canal Café Theatre | Review
Having read the promotional material for Carole Frechette’s new play John and Beatrice I was really intrigued as it spoke to many of my favourite dramatic obsessions. A short one hour, two-hander about a man and a woman locked in a room with each other for fifty years. I looked forward to a Beckettesque existential, tragic comedy about the human condition and … [Read more...]
Go, Lovely Rose by Mary Manning at The London Irish Centre
Mary Manning’s monologue about JFK’s mother Rose Fitzgerald is charming, chilling and challenging. Go, Lovely Rose tells the fascinating story of the 17-year-old Rose Fitzgerald. Siobhan Gallagher plays the young Rose to perfection. The play begins with Rose sitting at her desk reading a letter and smiling into the distance. She is over the moon because not only has … [Read more...]
Stones Theatre Company’s production of SAGA | Review
Saga, based on August Strindberg’s A Dream Play (1901) is an engaging, entertaining and enterprising 60-minute piece. The quartet of Frida Storm, Julia Florimo, Olivia Skoog and Marie Rabe are fantastically talented. Michael Currell’s script is sharp and direct and Olivia Stone's direction is fast-paced and economical. Daughter of the Gods, Saga (Frida Storm) falls … [Read more...]
Can Can! The New Offenbach Musical | Review
Transport yourself to Paris in the naughty 90s (the 1890s that is) and savour a rich blend of acting, music, singing and above all dancing. The multi-talented Phil Willmott Company bring together a who’s who of the Parisian fin de siècle and La Belle Époque (from the artist Toulouse Lautrec brilliantly portrayed by Jordan Nesbitt, to Jacques Offenbach (Sam Woods), the … [Read more...]
Mandela: The Official Exhibition at 26 Leake Street
With the dreaded half-term fast approaching I have a suggestion for parents and grandparents who wish to introduce their children/grandchildren to Nelson Mandela. Nonchalantly walk them up the stairs from York Way to the Royal Festival Hall as they get to the top they will see the wonderful portrait bust of Mandela. At this, they will inevitably ask “Who was Mandela?” … [Read more...]
Hedda Gabler at the Mary Wallace Theatre, Twickenham
Tucked away down by the river Thames in Twickenham is a converted protestant mission hall which is now the home of the good people of the Richmond Shakespeare Society (RSS). The theatre is named after Mary Wallace a local woman who left money in her will to pay for the adaptation of the mission hall into a venue for live theatre. There is a bust of Shakespeare just … [Read more...]