Beers, Whines and Spirits
The Nag’s Head
by Gabriel Fogarty-Graveson and Felix Grainger
Make It Beautiful Theatre Company at the Park Theatre, Finsbury, until 28th October
Review by Denis Valentine
The Nags Head is a show that sells itself on the lines, “Do you want to hear tales that will chill you to the bone…”, and in parts delivers on this idea but there are many other elements packed in to its hour and forty minute runtime, which make it much more than just a ghostly horror theatre tale. As well as its spookier elements, the show is a very lively, funny affair with great energy and craft from its three actors.
Read more…Essential Traviata
La Traviata
by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Francesco Maria Piave (translation by Martin Fitzpatrick)
English National Opera at the London Coliseum until 12th November
Review by Patrick Shorrock
This is very much La Traviata stripped down. Stripped of a producer’s particular take on prostitution. Stripped of possibly the worst music Verdi ever wrote (Flora’s guests pretending to be Gypsies in Act 2) but also of the cabaletta that follows Di Provenza (which I was rather less happy about). Stripped of furniture, apart from a single chair. Stripped of any kind of set, other than several rows of deep red curtains (designer Johannes Leiacker). Stripped of intervals, which makes for a bladder-testing two hours right through.
But this stripping down works brilliantly, because it throws the essentials of this great opera into greater relief. It’s all about the characters and how they are revealed through their music, with no decorative distractions, and nowhere for the performers to hide. The audience is almost too caught up in the drama to applaud the arias – at the end they gave it a standing ovation – and is utterly drawn in. Alfredo sings his offstage counterpoint to Sempre Libera from the stalls, which is also where he, his father, Anina, and Doctor Grenvil are placed for the finale, leaving Violetta utterly isolated on stage.
Read more…Bite the Bullet
Dragon’s Teeth
by Shirland Quin
The Questors at The Studio, Ealing until 28th October
Review by Polly Davies
When the Questors opened its theatre in Ealing’s Mattock Lane back in 1933, it chose to stage the English premiere of an experimental new play by Shirland Quin, Dragons’ Teeth, described by the Amateur Theatre magazine at the time as “undoubtedly the most experimental work done by a London society in recent months, if not years”. It was a bold choice then; a contemporary review in The Spectator pronounced the play to be:
“a bold attempt at anti-war propaganda, but the central male character, the inventive officer who destroys his own new war- machine, does not carry conviction, and dream scenes mixed with realism disturb the adjustments of the observer.”
And it is a still bold choice by David Hovatter to update it as a play suitable for performance in the Studio space at the Questors, even if the original number of characters reportedly needed for the last act has been reduced from the original seventy (according to the current programme!) to a modest eight.
Read more…Direct Hits
Rock’N’Roll War Stories
by Allan Jones
OSO True Stories at the OSO Arts Centre, Barnes until 18th October
Review by Heather Moulson
Here is a man who held the key to a very golden era of rock n’ roll, a deceptively unassuming man in his seventh decade, and author of two memoirs, he had met everybody and everyone in the biz. Hosted by the vibrant Duncan Steer, we were introduced to the legendary editor of Melody Maker, Allan Jones
A young rookie at this iconic music newspaper in 1974, skinny with long blonde hair, he was immediately sent out to interview Elton John, who was promoting his new album Caribou. Despite Jones not hearing the LP before, he still shared five bottles of champagne with the pop star at eleven o’clock in the morning … “It would have been rude to say ‘No’”. This was the kind of tidal wave we were treated to, and just his discipline of getting on that typewriter that same afternoon and meeting his deadline was awe-inspiring.
Read more…Still-Life with Apples, an Elegy to Loss
Hamnet
by Maggie O’Farrell, adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti
The Royal Shakespeare Company and Neal Street Productions at the Garrick Theatre, West End until 17th February 2024
Review by Mark Aspen
Nearly four and a half centuries separate today and the domestic events of depicted in Hamnet, yet it seems just as much real and alive as it seems alien. Ulster writer, Maggie O’Farrell’s multi award-winning historical novel of the same name was published in March 2020, one week after the first Covid lockdown. Suddenly, in the 21st Century, we all experienced the reality and fear of plague, all too familiar experiences in Tudor England … and we have one of the raw live links with Hamnet, novel and play.
The RSC’s gripping and moving stage version, Hamnet covers episodes in the life of William Shakespeare, referred to as Will or as Agnes’ husband, and Anne Hathaway, here called Agnes (with some historical justification). The “g” in Agnes is silent … “but she is not” quips Will. The timeframe is from early 1582, when Agnes and Will first meet, to about 1600, when Will’s play, Hamlet is first performed.
Read more…Fine Lines
Apologia
by Alexi Kaye Campbell
Putney Theatre Company at the Putney Arts Theatre until 23rd October
Review by Brent Muirhouse
Sitting down at Putney Arts Theatre, I felt like I was taking a seat to join the cast for a family reunion dinner of sorts, the stage set with a large table and hidden kitchen, which was to be home to the whole performance. Within this simple setting, Apologia is a familial case study, drawing on the ensemble cast to straddle the line between comedy and tragedy, routinely swinging from amusing bickering to intense outpouring.
Read more…Gender Bender
Shakespeare’s R&J
by Joe Calarco
Reading Rep Company at the Reading Rep Theatre, Reading until 4th November
Review by Sam Martin
Shakespeare’s classic story of Romeo and Juliet is well known by audiences; however, this adaptation brings a sense of the contemporary that is rare in other versions of the “infamous” (as seen by the protagonists) script. The four male characters, students at a strict school, discover the play text of Romeo and Juliet and re-enact its narrative, interweaving the classic love story with the discovery of desire between two of the teenagers.
Read more…Miller’s Tale
A View from the Bridge
by Arthur Miller
Headlong at the Chichester Festival Theatre until 28th October and then the Rose Theatre Kingston until 11th November
Review by Patrick Shorrock
Arthur Miller’s stock has fallen somewhat. The Crucible and Death of a Salesman are undisputable masterpieces. But they are now school set texts – which doesn’t always help them live outside the curriculum – and the later plays are hardly ever done. I can remember desperately undistinguished revivals of All my Sons, The Price and The American Clock, which did nothing to add to Miller’s credibility. But there was also Ivo Von Hove’s sensational production of View from the Bridge at the Young Vic in 2014. So the question prompted by this revival is: can this play survive in a more ordinary production?
Read more…He Who Must Be Obeyed
A Voyage Round My Father
by John Mortimer
Jonathan Church and Theatre Royal Bath Productions at Richmond Theatre until 14th October, then on tour until 18th November
Review by Andrew Lawston
Richmond Theatre’s stage is covered in projected greenery which becomes the beloved garden at the heart of A Voyage Round My Father, John Mortimer’s 1970 play which dramatises and chronicles his relationship with his father – a great English eccentric barrister who was full of poetry, fun, and acerbic wit, but who proved emotionally unavailable, lavishing his care and attention on his garden instead of upon his son.
Rupert Everett plays Father, depicting this looming figure throughout his later years. It is a towering but restrained performance, as the man imposes upon his whole family, despite often sitting entirely still for whole scenes at a time while they run around him. Father’s stillness is ostensibly due to his blindness, but the size of the man’s personality suggests matters would be much the same if he were sighted.
Read more…Noteworthy Affairs
La Traviata
by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Francesco Maria Piave after Alexandre Dumas
Instant Opera at Normansfield Theatre, Teddington until 8th October
Review by Celia Bard
Instant Opera can notch up another huge operatic success with its latest production, La Traviata. I left the delightful Victorian Theatre, Normansfield, feeling quite uplifted, having just been transported into Verdi’s operatic world of glorious orchestral music, wonderful singing and tragic drama.
La Traviata tells the story of a doomed love affair between Violetta, a high class courtesan and the romantic, impetuous Alfredo Germond, who is besotted with her.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 