It is the duty of every citizen to answer the call to support and protect the United Kingdom and its allies so last night, while the rest of the country were watching Eurovision, I went to off to a secret location, in east London, to join the ‘radio makers’ involved in new immersive experience Illicit Signals Bletchley. When I joined the RAF back in the day, one of the first things I did was sign a copy of the Official Secrets. That signature bound me for life – in fact, I’m not even sure I … [Read more...]
Harold Pinter’s The Dwarfs at the White Bear Theatre
Harold Pinter only ever wrote one novel. And, let's be honest, he didn’t rush into this literary endeavour. He started it in 1950 and the book was finally published in 1992. During its extended gestation period, Pinter adapted the story into a radio play for the BBC and this was first performed in the Arts theatre in 1963. In 2002 director Christopher Morahan and the author Kerry Lee Crabbe asked Pinter for permission to work on the novel and the new version of the play was performed at the … [Read more...]
Julius Caesar at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
“All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.” A statement that is as true today as when it was first uttered in 1977. In fact it was true back when William Shakespeare wrote about a Roman general, statesman and member of the First Triumvirate, whose political life ended in death and dishonour. The play was Julius Caesar, and I had the opportunity to see it recently at the Globe … [Read more...]
Dreamgirls at New Wimbledon Theatre | Review
Sometimes, people forget that the ‘biz’ part of showbiz actually stands for business. Because entertainment is a multi-billion-pound business. Sometimes the people on the business side of the industry make a name for themselves – think of Simon Cowell – while their acts rise to fame, become stars, and then disappear from sight, apart from the odd appearance on some celebrity reality show. And this is the world that three young ladies from Chicago are aspiring to join in Dreamgirls which started … [Read more...]
Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare’s Globe
What do we look for in a romantic partner? Some people can fall in love at the merest smile while others have a list of those things that make someone else desirable to them. The majority of us are probably somewhere in the middle of these two extremes but the two couples in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing definitely fall at either end. For this version, the play is set in Northern Italy in April 1945. Following years of war, Leonata (Katy Stephens) and her family, daughter Hero Nadi … [Read more...]