Sean Holmes’ 2015 Lyric Hammersmith stage adaptation of Alan Parker’s 1976 film, has come around again as Christmas family fare at Ally Pally. The juvenile troupers give it their all and the stagecraft offers some sure-fire crowd-pleasing touches — like a life-sized car on stage — but rather than feeling filled with the spirit of the season, the experience has convinced me that Bugsy Malone is less of a festive classic and more of an awkward cultural relic that needs to be retired from the … [Read more...]
About Mary Beer
Mother Goose at Hackney Empire
'Tis the season to panto and the Hackney Empire joins the festive fray with Clive Rowe’s (director and panto dame extraordinaire) production of Mother Goose. This is classic panto: beat by beat, it obeys the century-old formula whilst inserting its own take - with a groovy full band in the pit and one splendid and surprising costume (designed by Cleo Pettitt) after another. For fans of the ultimate British cheesy yuletide tradition, Mother Goose does the business. For about £40 for the best … [Read more...]
Baghdaddy at the Royal Court Theatre
The horrors and absurdities of war have been the stuff of tragedy since Aeschylus - with generation after generation of storytellers illuminating the latest modes of outrages, abuses and heartache. Jasmine Naziha Jones joins this pantheon with her very personal coming-of-age drama Baghdaddy. Although a first-time playwright, Jones is an experienced performer. She shows her formidable acting chops playing not only the central character of second-generation British-Iraqi Darlee, both as an … [Read more...]
Joe White’s Blackout Songs at Hampstead Theatre
Why are tales of co-dependency so compelling? Indeed, it’s the very addictive nature of interpersonal drama that is at the heart of toxically intertwined self-destruction - with its longing for salvation from another and feelings of abject betrayal when a lover takes a different path (be it to sobriety or addiction) from whichever one the partner currently travels. Joe White’s Blackout Songs treads the same well-worn ground of artists in co-dependent relationships that is almost a subgenre in … [Read more...]
Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me at Kiln Theatre
Amy Trigg’s one-woman play is part drama/part stand-up comedy and 100% resonant for everyone who has struggled to grow up, fit in or find love. Pacey, hilarious and emotionally powerful, Trigg enacts Juno, a young woman who (like Trigg) was born with spina bifida, faced numerous surgeries to ‘correct’ her, and comes of age in the era of dating apps. Trigg’s turn-of-phrase is world-class - and so too is her sense of theatrical construction. Directed by Charlotte Bennett, Juno does much … [Read more...]
Mary by Rona Munro at Hampstead Theatre
Rona Munro’s world premiere of Mary serves as her latest addition to a cycle of six other James plays of Scottish historical drama. Whether well-acquainted with the Stuart monarchs or not, Roxana Silbert’s production of Munro’s latest work is one of those shows that benefits from some context. Grand in its production design and dramatically sumptuous in its oratory and performances, I was surprised that Mary was presented as a single act, straight through, and kept expecting an interval that … [Read more...]
The Boy With Two Hearts at the National Theatre
I desperately wanted to love Phil Porter’s stage adaptation of the Amiri brothers’ memoir of their family’s escape from Afghanistan - which started in 2000 when the Taliban vowed to execute their mother for speaking in favour of women’s rights. Hamed and Hessam’s odyssey as two young boys (played by Farshid Rokey and Shamail Ali), with their older teenage brother Hussein (Ahmad Sakai) and parents, eventually led them to Cardiff where they settled into school and Hussein graduated from university … [Read more...]