The Producers
BROS Theatre Company
Hampton Hill Theatre
17-22nd October 2016
Review by Mary Stoakes
‘Sheer, utter, unadulterated joy!’ was the verdict of the Daily Express when this show was produced professionally in 2004. The same could be said about the 2016 BROS production at the Hampton Hill Theatre, which would not be out of place on the West End stage.
Mel Brookes is quoted as saying when his initial film was criticised for being vulgar – My film rises below vulgarity! This BROS production was full of gleeful disrespect and political incorrectness, which delighted this reviewer and the majority of the packed house.
What did grandfather put in his pocket when he went to the theatre? Was it a pocket watch, perhaps, but one with an inaudible tick; maybe a tiny notebook, in case something occurred to him in the interval; a handkerchief to stifle a sniffle, silk as it is so much quieter? Read more…
The Importance of Being Ernest
by Oscar Wilde
SMDG
Hampton Hill Theatre until 15th October
Review by Thomas Forsythe.
“In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing”. So says Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax, the worldly and wily heroine of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest. In the grave matter of mounting a production of a play, one might ask which is the most important to achieve.
SMDG’s current production at Hampton Hill certainly has plenty of style, but also puts across the ambiguities of Victorian society where how one does something is more important than why one does it.
Conspiracy
by Loring Mandel
OHADS
Hampton Hill Theatre until 8th October
Review by Thomas Forsythe
In his famous Blut und Eisen speech, Otto von Bismark said “The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.” In Conspiracy we see speeches quashed and majority decisions overturned in a manner whose ruthlessness stepped up the portent of Bismark’s adage. The great question of 20th January 1942 considered at the Wannsee Conference resulted in the “final solution” that was to come to be known as the holocaust.
The River
by Jez Butterworth
OHADS ;Hampton Hill Theatre Studio
Review by Mark Aspen
Izaak Walton meets Sigmund Freud in OHADS’ recent production of Jez Butterworth’s The River, a gem of such compact complexity Read more…
Family Circles
by Alan Ayckbourn
Hampton Hill Theatre
OHADS
Review by Mark Aspen
In the way that mothers always accurately distil wisdom, my mother used to say, “If … is a little word with a very big meaning”. Read more…
The God of Carnage
by Yasmina Reza
OHADS
Hampton Hill Playhouse Studio
Review by Mark Aspen
“Puking seems to have perked you up”. This memorable line from one of the characters in Yasmina Reza’s The God of Carnage can be seen as a metaphor for the cathartic effect of this, one of her best plays. Read more…
Riders to the Sea
by John Millington Synge
COG Artspace
Fractured Lines
Review by Mark Aspen
To distil Achill and Arran, all those misty windswept islands in Ireland’s far west, and to concentrate that spirit into a small theatre above a pub in Hoxton is a remarkable feat. But this is just what Fractured Lines, a thrusting new stage company, has done in its current production of Synge’s fateful tragedy, Riders to the Sea, running until the end of November at COG ARTSpace. Read more…
The Graduate
by Terry Johnson
Hampton Hill Playhouse
OHADS
Review by Mark Aspen
The first line of Phillip Larkin’s famous (notorious?) poem, This Be the Verse (usually parodied as “They tuck you up, your mum and dad”) came to mind when watching OHADS’ recent production of The Graduate at Hampton Hill Playhouse. Read more…
A Lady of Letters
by Alan Bennett
and
Follow Me
by Ross Gurney-Randall and David Mounfield
Hampton Hill Playhouse Studio
OHADS Double Bill
Review by Mark Aspen
Two women, two lives, two plays: each seemingly very different. Their two emotional journeys were packed into an intense evening, in a double bill presented by OHADS in the intimate space of the Coward studio at Hampton Hill Playhouse. Read more…
Mark Aspen 