All the Fun of the Fair
Così Fan Tutte
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte
English National Opera at the London Coliseum until 21st February
Review by Patrick Shorrock
Just how hilarious an opera Così Fan Tutte is supposed to be remains an open question. Two men attempt to seduce one another’s lovers for a bet, because they are convinced of their faithfulness, and get a rude awakening from their romantic illusions – or perhaps, more accurately, a taste of their own medicine. This sounds like a recipe for something witty, ironic, and funny, but the music is so intense and so magnificent that it never quite feels like a joke, even in Act One when everyone is either pretending or bigging up their emotions for effect.
Previous generations rejected the piece as immoral because the lovers experiment with other people; or as an affront to the romantic spirit because everyone goes back to their original partners at the end. Nowadays, there are concerns about the extent to which it might be sexist: whilst the men in it certainly are, it remains much more ambiguous whether the opera itself is. The men are excessive in both their idealising and denigration of their women and have no self-awareness as they collude in the destruction of their own illusions, oblivious that they are applying a double standard and are just as unfaithful as the women whose loyalty they discover is not absolute. These days, there seems something quite healthy and sensible about the 18th Century view that you can’t completely trust anyone because everyone is fallible and needs a bit of forgiveness.
Read more…Who’s Who
Practically Imperfect
by Clare Norburn
The Telling at the OSO Arts Centre, Barnes until 15th February, then on tour until 20th March
Review by Claire Alexander
Whilst PL Travers did write other books she is by far and away known for her Mary Poppins series — perhaps even more so because of the enormous success of the Walt Disney film of the same name — its rights acquired by Disney in 1962. As an author primarily known for one work that has become a household name she is in good company: Harper Lee (To Kill A Mockingbird) Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights) Boris Pasternak (Dr Zhivago) JD Salinger (Catcher in the Rye) to name a few.
Clare Norburn’s play Practically Imperfect starts from the premise of what might have happened if Travers had met her heroine, or indeed if her heroine had met Travers. Thus starts a clever engaging dialogue between the two and you begin to wonder who’s in charge, Mary Poppins or Travers. Part biographical and part psychological exploration of what happens when an author becomes controlled and overtaken by her creation of a character that is far bigger than herself, this is a thought-provoking and interesting reflection on quiet, frumpy PL Travers, and her larger than life creation.
Read more…A Marriage Made in Hell
Dance of Death
by August Strindberg, adapted by Richard Eyre
OT Productions at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond until 7th March
Review by Patrick Shorrock
Samuel Butler once wrote: “It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry one another and so make only two people miserable instead of four.” Alice and Edgar, the awful unhappy couple in Strindberg’s Dance of Death, would clearly find the Carlyles lamentably unambitious, as they take turns to make mincemeat of Kurt, who is Alice’s cousin and Edgar’s friend, and who is unwise enough to pay them a visit.
We are told that the servants (understandably) have abandoned this nasty couple to their own devices, and that their neighbours avoid their company as much as possible (I don’t blame them). This comes across as a sardonic joke by Strindberg at the audience’s expense, as we have the misfortune to be shut in a darkened theatre with Edgar and Alice for two hours (albeit with a fifteen-minute interval). Will Keen, as Edgar, gives a wonderfully detailed portrayal of toxic militarism that is mixed with strokes and fainting fits that he seems able to deploy at will. Lisa Dillon plays Alice unhammily as a confused blend of frustrated attention-seeking retired actress addicted to manipulation, an oppressed woman damaged by patriarchy.
Read more…Things That Go Bump
2:22 — A Ghost Story
by Danny Robins
Runaway Entertainment at Richmond Theatre, until 7thFebruary
Review by Harry Zimmerman
It is fair to say that 2.22 – A Ghost Story has a legitimate claim to being one of the most successful plays in British Theatre over the last five years. The statistics are impressive. Since its 2021 debut, it has played regularly across the UK and Ireland. The show has been seen by over one million people in seventeen different countries across five continents. It holds the all-time record for the most transfers in the West End and has been nominated for three Olivier awards. This particular production is its fourth extensive UK-wide tour.
Continually refreshing and resetting itself for UK tours and London residences, the play has also been instrumental in catapulting its writer, Danny Robins, to a pre-eminent position in what may be termed populist ghost broadcasting. Robins is the creator and host of the tremendously successful radio, TV and podcast show Uncanny, which investigates creepy paranormal experiences sent in by the general public. Uncanny is the ideal listening companion late at night, if you are that way inclined.
Read more…Séance For Lost Gods
Dagmarr’s Dimanche : Songs from the Cinema
Hersh Dagmarr at The Crazy Coqs, Soho, 1st February, then on tour until 24th March
Review by Ravenna Vale
At Crazy Coqs, in a room already steeped in theatrical memory, Hersh Dagmarr’s Dagmarr’s Dimanche : Songs from the Cinema unfolded like a séance for Hollywood’s lost gods. On a dank Sunday February evening, Dagmarr, that flamboyant and restless spectre of cabaret, summoned a world of celluloid glamour with intelligence, irony, and genuine emotional grit. Accompanied by the exquisitely attuned pianist Karen Newby, this was not nostalgia as museum piece, but cinema remembered through lived feeling and sharpened craft.
From the opening strains of Alfred Newman’s Street Scene, gliding seamlessly into Mae West’s wickedly suggestive I Found a New Way to Go to Town, the audience was ushered into a realm where wit and danger cohabit. Dagmarr does not imitate the screen legends he reveres. Instead, he channels their essence, allowing their songs to breathe anew through his own singular persona. His delivery of You Little So and So captured Marlene Dietrich’s smoky disdain while adding a flicker of mischief entirely his own.
Read more…Motherhood
Ballad Lines
by Finn Anderson and Tania Azevedo
Aria Entertainment and KT Producing at The Southwark Playhouse Elephant until 21stMarch
Review by Vince Francis
Striding along Kennington Park Road on a fresh January evening, I was feeling quite excited at the prospect of seeing a new work at Southwark Playhouse, itself a hotbed of such endeavours. However, I wasn’t going into this “blind”. As is the current practice much information is available online, including a cast recording of the show on Spotify, and various YouTube videos showing parts of the rehearsal process and interviews with the writers, Finn Anderson and Tania Azevedo, and musical director, Shonagh Murray. The intent of Anderson and Azevedo was to explore two key themes in parallel. Firstly, the migration of traditional ballads and how they survived and-or evolved in their new environments. In itself, this would possibly be a worthy topic, but the struggles of women and their agency around childbearing, often reflected in the ballads, suggested a second line of exploration on which to develop this piece.
Read more…Rich Man (Poor Man) . . . and the Thief ?
Loyalties
by John Galsworthy
The Questors Theatre at the Judi Dench Playhouse until 31stJanuary
Review by Polly Davies
John Galsworthy’s stylish play is part drawing-room drama and part a thoughtful exposition of the tensions produced by the social norms in the Nineteenth Century, and still evident to a large extent today. It is a courageous choice by the Questors at a time when prejudice in general, and anti-Semitism in particular are once more in the forefront of societal and political discourse. But I’m glad they made it. Loyalties is a beautifully constructed play, dealing with some tough subjects and Francis Lloyd’s direction delivers a very enjoyable evening.
The scene is set in the first Act. Ferdinand de Levis is attending a country house weekend in the home of Charles and Adela Winsor, including attending the races at Newmarket. That night he discovers that the money he got for selling a horse has been stolen from his room. The most likely candidate as thief is a fellow guest, Ronald Dancy, an officer and a gentleman; an embarrassing dilemma for a host on any occasion.
Read more…Eye and Ear
Art in Opera
by Helen Astrid
Wild Arts in Podcast
Review by Celia Bard
Art in Opera: what a splendid title! Each has at is heart the concept of storytelling, with paintings acting as a visual narrative and opera using song and theatrical elements to convey complex plots and deep character insights. The synthesis between these two forms of art explored in this podcast promised to be both innovative and interesting.
The podcast was produced by the opera company Wild Arts. The lecturer is Helen Astrid who runs her own opera singing academy and is known for her expertise as both a broadcaster and lecturer on opera. Given her impressive background, I approached the YouTube link with eager anticipation.
Read more…All in a Flap
The Rivals
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Orange Tree Productions at the Orange Tree Theatre until 24thJanuary
Review by Susan Furnell
Tom Littler’s update of The Rivals to a modernised script and to the feel-good 1920s, with Charleston music, flapper dresses, feathered hats pin, striped suits and blazers and dancing with disco lights, was a triumphant success, radiating joy and laughs from the moment we entered the auditor (accompanied by the song You’re the Cream in my Coffee) until the last bows.
Read more…Up for the Chop
Gawain and the Green Knight
by Gabriel Fogarty-Graveson and Felix Grainger
Make It Beautiful at the Park Theatre, Finsbury Park until 24th December
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a 14th-century chivalric poem and Arthurian legend. It tells the story of Gawain, one of the Knights of the Round Table, who challenges a mysterious, formidable, and seemingly unbeatable Green Knight who has dared any man to strike him with an axe, promising to return the blow in a year and a day.
In an imaginative move, theatre company Make It Beautiful has created a lightly comedic reimagining of the story set in the present-day offices of cybersecurity firm, Camelot Corporation. The new CEO has decided to give the company an Arthurian rebrand and required all her staff to adopt new names. She is now called Arthur, her deputy is Lancelot, and the rather dull IT guy, Gary, is now to be known as Gawain. He is considered rather boring and miserable, so after ten years at the firm, poor old Gary, sorry, Gawain, is being banished — i.e., made redundant. As reasons for dismissal go, this might not stand up under the Employment Rights Act 2025, but let’s go with it, as well as the rather unusual redeployment process which involves the introduction of a mystical Green Knight and Gary-Gawain being given the opportunity to begins an epic quest to embody the five traits of courage, chastity, honour, generosity, and nobility.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 