Filing cabinets. Lots and lots of filing cabinets. Wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets, in fact. By my reckoning 230ish of the grey, metallic, functional-but-boring instruments of administrative torture that form the backdrop to this play about the Yorkshire Ripper. It’s an inspired design by Patrick Connellan because it informs us, from the start, that the piece is about the minutiae of detection, the importance of data collection and the tragedy that unfurls when you can’t see the … [Read more...]
Frances Barber: Billie Trix in MUSIK by Pet Shop Boys & Jonathan Harvey
There are good plays; there are inspirational dramas; and there are out-of-body experiences; Musik, the one-person show performed with explosive panache by Frances Barber, falls, very definitely, into the third of these categories. If you were looking for a definition of how a mind gets blown then it’s right here, right now in this extraordinary show at The Leicester Square Theatre. Careful though: Barber, as Billie Trix, the rampant, night-club-trippy dominatrix, it's going to grab you by … [Read more...]
For the Sake of Argument at the Bridewell Theatre | Review
I have a reasonably wide knowledge of the hostelries that abound in London, including, more specifically, around Euston. I’ve experienced bare-board floors, squishy ‘Spoons carpets, retro-lino and even an attempt to return to the spit ’n’ sawdust of the ‘fifties. (There’s actually a pub called the “Spit and Sawdust” in Bermondsey). But I’ve never come across a pub the floor of which is covered in sand. And I’m not talking surface sprinkling here: no, in this show the floor of the Cock Tavern in … [Read more...]
Matt Forde: Brexit, Pursued By A Bear at Soho Theatre | Review
Andrew Neil is having a bad time: not only was his flagship late-night politics show shelved, he was also denied the chance to interview, live, prospective PM Boris Johnson. And to cap it all he lost the ability to be impersonated by stand-up comic and politics satirist par excellence, Matt Forde. Yep. It’s true. Amongst all of Forde’s wonderful re-creations of our excruciating political elite Neil deserted him in his hour of need, coming out all Gerry Adams with a touch of Glenys Kinnock. To … [Read more...]
Hamlet: Rotten States at The Hope Theatre | Review
Fardels. Yeah, fardels. If you know your soliloquisation of tragic procrastinators you’ll know we’re talking Hamlet here. That is, of course, if you hadn’t already spotted it in the title. Hamlet, arguably the greatest play ever written, has lent itself, rather too often in my view, to various bastardisations in search of what we might term “further meaning” or “extra elucidation” perhaps. Some are good re-workings: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Dogg’s Hamlet are offerings from Tom … [Read more...]