Powered Flight
Peter Pan
By Piers Chater-Robinson, based on the novel by J. M. Barrie
The Edmundians, Cheray Hall, Whitton until 26th January
Review by Mark Aspen
In the words of Captain Hook, “Split me infinitives!” … treading the boards AND walking the plank!
Peter Pan has been tweaked, turned and twisted many times since its first performance just after Christmas 1904, but The Edmundian Players marked the play’s centenary with the Edwardian enchantment of Barrie’s original fairy story, enhanced by Chater-Robinson’s music.
Read more…Chequered History
Chess
by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, lyrics by Tim Rice
BROS Theatre Company at Hampton Hill Playhouse until 20th November
Review by Mark Aspen
What is the most serious game in the world: an ancient board game, or is it… … politics, diplomacy, romance, with all their rivalries and intrigues? BROS examined this question in last week’s production of Tim Rice’s musical Chess.
Played out against a pulsating score by ABBA’s Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, Chess is an allegory on Cold War politics and passionate relationships. The story is based loosely on battles in the 1970s on and off the board of Bobby Fischer and Soviet Grandmasters such as Spassky, Kasparov and Korchnoi. Two Grandmasters, an American, Freddy Trumper, and a Russian, Anatoly Sergievsky are used as major pieces in their countries’ power politics and propaganda games. Florence Vassy, an Hungarian refugee, who at the outset is Freddy’s second, falls in love with Anatoly, who then defects to the West. The board is controlled by the manipulations of KGB and CIA officers within the rank and file of the national delegation, who even sacrifice Svetlana, Anatoly’s wife in a gambit to win him back to the Soviet side.
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