A Paws-itively Curious Night
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Simon Stephens, based on the novel by Mark Haddon
Questors Productions at the Juli Dench Playhouse, Ealing, until 28th March
Review by Andrew Lawston
There is a dead dog centre stage at The Questors Theatre. A garden fork is poking out from it. The grisly tableau ought to be shocking, but it’s so instantly recognisable from the cover of Mark Haddon’s iconic novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time that it’s a strangely reassuring sight. It’s an early sign that we are in assured hands for this production of the Simon Stephens adaptation of the bestseller.
For those unfamiliar with the book or the National Theatre and later West End hit play, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time opens with fifteen year old Christopher Boone in his neighbour’s garden in Swindon, making the unpleasant discovery that someone has killed Wellington the dog. As a keen Sherlock Holmes fan, Christopher decides to investigate the canine murder, and begins “detecting” by questioning his relatives and neighbours.
Read more…Drawn Forth
Vincent in Brixton
by Nicholas Wright
OT Productions at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond until 18th April
Review by Patrick Shorrock
It seems highly implausible that Vincent Van Gough spent time as a very young man in Brixton as an art dealer and was possibly entangled romantically with his landlady and-or her daughter, until things came to an abrupt end following a visit from his sister. But, as often, with implausible reality, this is all historical fact. Writer Nicholas Wright produces a well flavoured drama from these unlikely ingredients, even if, inevitably, he has to resort to speculation. It is a measure of his success that this would still be a fascinating play, even if it wasn’t about someone who became one of the world’s most famous painters.
Read more…Parliament of Fools?
Waiting for Hamlet
by David Visick
Take Note Theatre and Smokescreen Productions at Theatre at the Tabard, Chiswick until 4th April
Review by Gill Martin
We, the audience at the Tabard Theatre, are directly in the line of the fire. In the firing squad are two actors with laser focus, bullseye accuracy and the delivery of a manic machine gun. Their ammo is words, just words, but what wordplay, thanks to a brilliant script by David Visick. If this ammunition was in the armoury of any warring power no drone would stand a chance of hitting its target.
And apart from their unwavering aim the two actors, Tim Marriott as the Old King Hamlet, and Nicholas Collett as the Fool, have only as back up a pair of hats. Yes, hats! One a bejewelled golden crown for King Hamlet, or rather his ghost as (plot spoiler) he’s but a ghost since his murder most foul by his brother who, incidently, is bedding the Queen. And a colourful cap’n’bells for the Fool, who is much wiser than the foolish King.
Read more…Past Mistress
The Dawn of Reckoning
by Mark Bastin
MBA Productions at The White Bear Theatre, Kennington until 28th March
Review by Harry Zimmerman
A play for two actors is a popular construct these days, especially for the burgeoning fringe theatre scene. In his introduction to Mark Bastin’s The Dawn of Reckoning, director Matthew Parker, in a piece entitled The Lure of the Two-Hander, says that this format enabled him to work with his actors to “…create something quite powerful and intense”.
He has certainly succeeded in this production.
Read more…Dying to Help
You Stupid Darkness!
by Sam Steiner
Putney Theatre Company at the Putney Arts Theatre Studio until 21st March
Review by Heather Moulson
On night shift in an office setting, we see four volunteers working as the world around them falls apart. This may presumably be the aftermath of nuclear fallout, but alongside it sits a personal fallout, and the crumbling of four lives, as the volunteers grapple and struggle to stay strong for desperate telephone callers.
A triumph for the Putney Theatre Company, You Stupid Darkness is well crafted, yet deeply disturbing. The two and a quarter hour production is deftly intensive as we are drawn into an on-going battle with self-control.
Read more…Emotional Depths
The Deep Blue Sea
by Terence Rattigan
Teddington Theatre Club at the Coward Studio, Hampton Hill Theatre until 21st March
Review by Gill Martin
If you are seeking vintage Terence Rattigan look no further than The Deep Blue Sea, Teddington Theatre Club’s latest offering at Hampton Hill’s Coward Studio.
It’s an intimate setting, with just fifty seats for its first night sell-out, with a faithful reproduction of the 1950s with floral curtains, cafe chairs and fringed standard lamps, popular in post-war Britain.
The atmosphere is claustrophobic and unsettling with both acts set over a single day in a north-west London boarding house complete with landlady (Melanie Richardson) in obligatory headscarf and housecoat.
Read more…Spark Gap
Double Indemnity
by James M Cain, adaptation by Tom Holloway
Trafalgar Theatre Productions at Richmond Theatre until 7th March, then on tour until 9th May
Review by Eleanor Lewis
Insurance salesmen don’t immediately bring to mind the idea of suspense and high stakes, passion-fuelled murder carried out in great style. This didn’t matter to James M Cain who wrote the book upon which this adaptation by Tom Holloway is based, nor did it prove an issue for the ensuing film based on Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder’s screenplay, but a stage is a different arena and presents a new set of challenges.
The current touring production of Double Indemnity, at Richmond this week, has risen boldly to some of those challenges. Ti Green’s grey, industrial but indistinct set dominates. At times it seems to be a vast ventilation system giving the human characters scurrying about in it the look of insects, or rats. It morphs into train stations, living rooms and offices, and together with Joshua Gadsby’s stark lighting it is an appropriately film noir evocation of depression-era America where life is hard, familial relations are strained, and no allowances will be made. Convincingly driving and parking a car however, albeit a stylised car on a stage with an audience willing to go with it, is a detail that’s been rather overlooked.
Read more…Citizens of Everywhere
Our Town
by Thornton Wilder
Welsh National Theatre at the Rose Theatre, Kingston until 28th March
Review by Patrick Shorrock
This is one of those magical evenings when words, actors, movement, music, sound and lighting all fuse together to create theatre at its finest. This is a production that completely enchants its audience. It’s not simply that all the constituent parts work well, but that they combine together and reinforce each other, which makes it pleasurably impossible to locate where the magic lies, as everyone contributes to the spell.
To start with, there is Thornton Wilder’s quietly astonishing play that finds something wonderful in the ordinary without making a fuss about it. Wilder is best known as the author of The Matchmaker, the play that inspired the glorious musical Hello, Dolly. But he does something rather less feel-good and more weighty here, whilst still moving with the grace and lightness of touch of an instinctive man of the theatre.
Read more…Spark of Learning
Educating Rita
by Willy Russell
Reading Rep Productions at the Reading Rep Theatre until 21st March
Review by Sam Martin
Few modern plays capture the relationship between education, class and identity with the wit and warmth of Educating Rita. In this vivid new production at Reading Rep Theatre, director Annie Kershaw refreshes Willy Russell’s enduring two-hander with clarity and compassion, allowing its humour and humanity to shine while retaining the sharp social observations that have kept the play relevant for more than four decades.
At its heart, the play is deceptively simple: a working-class hairdresser enrols in an Open University literature course and forms an unlikely partnership with her disillusioned tutor. Yet Russell’s writing explores something far more complex — the struggle to belong, the fear of change, and the liberating potential of education. Kershaw’s production handles these themes with a thoughtful balance, never overstating the divide between Rita and Frank but allowing the social and cultural contrasts between them to surface naturally through language, gesture and perspective.
Read more…Tide Turns
Sea Witch
by Kristopher Russell and Michael David Glover, music by Segun Fawole, book by Michael David Glover
Russell and Glover Theatrical at The Theatre Royal Drury Lane, West End, 1stMarch
Review by Ravenna Vale
There are moments in theatre when a production announces itself not with spectacle, nor with narrative revelation, but with something rarer: a sense of creative propulsion. Sea Witch, which enjoyed its world premiere this weekend at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, belonged to that category. Whatever hesitations the evening invited, its musical and choreographic imagination was unmistakable. One left the theatre persuaded that something bold had been attempted, even if the vessel carrying it had not yet entirely found its shape.
The evening’s most persuasive achievement lay in the score. Segun “Segue” Fawole’s music and lyrics possessed a rhythmic confidence that was difficult to ignore: a synthesis of gospel exaltation, contemporary musical theatre lyricism, and pop architecture that felt neither derivative nor cautious. The music did not merely accompany the narrative but rather supplied the production’s central dramatic vocabulary.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 