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…Sub Rosa
The Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Questors Youth Theatre at the Judi Dench Playhouse, Ealing until 28thFebruary
Review by Polly Davies
Alex Marker’s audacious adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s much loved children’s novel proved to be a perfect way to showcase the talented members of the Questors’ Youth Theatre. The amuse bouche performance by the younger members of this group provided plenty of reassurance that there is a good supply of talent and enthusiasm in the wings of this youthful theatre company.
Read more…French Leave
Fallen Angels
by Noël Coward
Teddington Theatre Club at the Hampton Hill Theatre until 28th February
Review by Heather Moulson
Fallen Angels was an unexplored part of the Noël Coward canon for me, so what might unfold? We were welcomed into a splendid and stylish flat in London, with intriguing alcoves and a tantalising glimpse of a room behind the door. Directed in charming detail by Mandy Stenhouse, who has an impressive background with Teddington Theatre Club, the production presented a nice use of the space and its dimensions and, with its tasteful twenties décor, opened up for us a window into 1925.
A postcard, a blast from the past, disrupts the married lives of friends Julia and Jane. As a result, we watch their composure unravel as they recall a former French lover . . . the same French lover. Their husbands off for the weekend, the women are thrown into turmoil with anticipated telephone calls and passionate memories. With intermittent and profound advice from Saunders, the new maid, played wryly by Isabelle Crean, and the use of the splendid grand piano and enchanting music and vocals, we follow their difficult journey.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 