Dual Duels
Passion Play
by Peter Nichols
Teddington Theatre Club at the Coward Studio, Hampton Hill Theatre until 25th November
Review by Brent Muirhouse
Entering Hampton Hill Theatre’s Noel Coward Room, the intimate setting felt appropriate for Passion Play by Peter Nichols, centring around the changing relationship of married couple James and Eleanor Croxley, which undergoes a forensic examination on stage when James is tempted away by the lure of a younger woman, Kate. What threatens in this description to be a simple soap opera instead takes in the best parts of interpersonal dynamics, the workings of the human conscience and the dichotomy between inner and outer selves.
First published in 1981, the play delves into themes of fidelity, morality, and the conflict between desire and societal expectations. In practice we meet the couple at centre of Passion Play, James (Oliver Tims) and his wife Eleanor (Kirsty MacDonald), as he grapples with his inner conflicts when tempted by a new lover, Kate (Natasha Nicola), mistress of his late best friend Albert, and public enemy number one to Albert’s widow, Agnes (Cath Messum).
Read more…Perfect World
The Creation
by Joseph Haydn, libretto by Gottfried van Swieten
Glyndebourne Productions at Glyndebourne Festival Theatre until 15th December
Review by Mark Aspen
One of the joys of visiting any of our national art collections is to stand in a gallery and immerse oneself in vast Old Master canvasses depicting the Garden of Eden, the world of the earliest part of the Book of Genesis, by say by one of the Brueghels, probably Jan, or Rubens, or Cranach. The more you look, the more you see; and the more you see the more you feel.
(Of course nowadays, your pleasure may be interrupted by a destructive and pitifully ill-informed protester; a fate that even, ironically, environmental aware Glyndebourne has suffered.)
Haydn’s oratorio, The Creation is the musical equivalent of these canvasses, a work of art that bears listening to again and again; for the more you listen, the more you hear; and the more you hear the more you feel. Regretfully, there are just two opportunities to hear Glyndebourne’s wonder-filled presentation of Haydn’s 1799 masterpiece this year, while it runs in parallel with another pre-eminent oratorio, Handel’s Messiah, as part of its Autumn Season.
Read more…Playing Plays
The Rehearsal
by Jean Anouilh
The Questors at the Questors Studio, Ealing until 25th November
Review by Brent Muirhouse
John Turner hints at the meta nature within his direction of Jean Anouilh’s The Rehearsal in a sentence containing forms of the word ‘rehearse’ no fewer than five times. This describes the fact that the French aristocrats at the centre of the play are themselves rehearsing for a play, which is to take place during a weekend party at a chateau. Their rehearsal takes place against an backdrop of a variety of love – both required and unrequited – which, for the evening, turns The Questors’ in Ealing into a complicated amorous and indulgent battleground in the francophone countryside.
Read more…Bare Bottom Cheekiness
La Clique 2023
by David Bates
Underbelly at the Spiegeltent, Leicester Square, until 6th January
Review by Gill Martin
Popcorn and parasols, hip hop and hoola hoops, shaving foam and bare bottom cheekiness, daring aerial acrobatics, music veering from opera to Adele, eye-watering splits and sequins.
Welcome to La Clique, the poor man’s (other genders are available) Cirque du Soleil. With a lot more laughs and a much cheaper ticket, Underbelly’s La Clique has pitched its Spiegeltent in Soho’s Leicester Square for the seventh year, ready for a festive fling.
Read more…Mozart on a Tightrope
Amadeus
by Peter Schaffer
Putney Theatre Company at Putney Arts Theatre until 18th November
Review by Andrew Lawston
With a verbose script, a daunting running time of almost three hours, and huge themes of seething creative jealousy, the ephemeral nature of genius, and the unpredictable question of which art endures for posterity and which is forgotten, not to mention a huge number of 18th century costumes and endless musical cues, Peter Schaffer’s Amadeus is a bold and ambitious choice for any theatre company, but one which Putney Theatre Company have attacked with great gusto at Putney Arts Theatre.
Amadeus ostensibly tells the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s final years in Vienna, but the play belongs to Antonio Salieri, the sweet-toothed court composer and devout Catholic who, appalled at Mozart’s immature and coarse behaviour, resents his enormous talent and his arrogance, and vows to destroy him to spite God. The play zips along at a tremendous pace thanks to director Ian Higham, and three enjoyable hours fly by.
Read more…Ghost of a Chance
The Woman in Black
by Stephen Mallatratt, adapted from the novel by Susan Hill
PW Productions at Richmond Theatre until 18th November, then on tour until 1st June 2024
Review by Heather Moulson
Back in 1989, The Woman in Black opened in the in the West End and over 13,000 performances have followed. But the current production is still a fresh fest of Gothic horror.
A great entrance from the auditorium by the excellent Mark Hawkins playing The Actor forms the surprise opening. This humorous first encounter lets us forgive the distracting house lights staying on in the opening minutes. However, once they dim, we long for them to return, as terror and apprehension envelope us.
Read more…Debauchery with a Health Warning
Don Giovanni
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte
Glyndebourne Productions at Glyndebourne Festival Theatre until 2nd December.
Review by Mark Aspen
Mozart and his librettist, the worldly-aware Da Ponte, knew what pulled in the crowds: sex and violence, especially if it comes with a strong whiff of society gossip. La plus ça change!
Don Giovanni, widely regarded as one of his finest operas musically (although some may prefer Le Nozze di Figaro), certainly has all these crowd-pullers. And perhaps therein lies its difficulty. Is it a tragedy or a comedy? Mozart described it as a dramma giocoso, but attempted rape and murder are far, far from joyous. Some productions truncate the final scene of the happy(ish) ending and finish on the stern moral lesson of the unrepentant reprobate of the title being dragged to hell by the ghost of his murder victim (the so-called Prague versus Vienna endings, after the locations of the premières). Glyndebourne’s production retains the (Prague) upbeat ending and skilfully manages to keep the delicate balance between the parallel streams of humour and horror that run throughout.
Read more…Schubert Makes Everything Better
Schubertiade
Music by Franz Schubert words by various including Wilhelm Müller and Wolfgang von Goethe
Rose Opera at Leighton House, Kensington, 10th November
Review by Patrick Shorrock
This was a delightful evening, with some of Schubert’s best-known songs performed by some talented singers in the glorious setting of Leighton House.
Pedants might say that this high camp Victorian setting isn’t a perfect fit for Schubert who is from a rather earlier period. But Leighton House is well worth a visit in its own right, both for the sensational Arab Hall, with its indoor fountain and glorious blue tiles, and also for the many drawings, paintings, and sculptures by the cosmopolitan Lord Leighton, who had this house built for him as both studio and residence.
Read more…By Gosh!
Mates in Chelsea
by Rory Mullarkey
The Royal Court Theatre, Chelsea until 16th December
Review by Polly Davies
Rory Mullarkey’s Mates in Chelsea is a joy. The script is clever, witty, and very funny and the cast romp through it, keeping the audience engaged throughout. In the process it quietly takes a hammer to both the established social order and the socialist dream. But this nihilistic message is best considered quietly at home later. The play is far too fast paced and entertaining to miss a moment.
Laurie Kynaston’s s foppish Theodore (Tug) Bungay’s life as an entitled carefree bachelor is about to come to an end. His modern- day Jeeves, Mrs Hanratty, convincingly played by Amy Booth-Steel is a card-carrying ex-member of the Baader Meinhof with a penchant for baking, and an inexplicable affection for him. His socialite fiancée Finty Crossbell is becoming weary of an overlong engagement, and his ancestral home is about to be sold to a Russian Oligarch. As the play develops, the audience are variously giggling at the topical references and innuendos, belly laughing at the delightful farce scene in the middle of the play, gasping at the incredible stage effects, or quietly watching and listening intently as the denouement unfolds.
Read more…Reflections of Shadowing
Creative Voices II
An Evening with Lisa Jewell
Arts Richmond at the Exchange Theatre, Twickenham, 8th November
Review by Heather Moulson
Seated before us was the very prolific writer, Lisa Jewell. With a backdrop of her latest book None of This Is True, the interviewer, York Membery introduced us to Jewell, who in turn presented this her latest novel. Part of Arts Richmond’s Creative Voices, this was the second talk with an established author at The Exchange.
We were eager to learn the secret of her engaging and gripping plots, and Jewell was happy to share the notion of how she would be obsessed with a particular idea, as in this case, being shadowed by someone from the outside. For instance, for his book A Year with Lisa Jewell,Will Brooker did indeed shadow Jewell for that amount of time, parting company, leaving the writer to surmise what if it was the wrong one you let into your life? The product of which emerged in July 2023 and lit up on the backdrop.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 