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…Interventions and Inventive Reinventions
Cinderella
by Gioachino Rossini, libretto by Jacopo Ferretti, translated by Christopher Cowell
English Touring Opera at the Hackney Empire until 7th October, then on tour until 15th November
Review by Mark Aspen
Cinderella is a story that keeps reinventing itself. Well, it has been around quite a while. It may have started with the ancient Greeks, found its way into a thousand folk tales and, via Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, to the familiar panto story. So Cinderella is quite a venerable lady, but never old. English Touring Opera’s reinvention of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, his reinvention of the Cinderella story is, well … inventive.
Read more…Operatic Fairy Dust
Iolanthe
by Arthur Sullivan libretto by W.S. Gilbert
English National Opera at the London Coliseum, until 25th October
Review by Patrick Shorrock
After its superb and searing Peter Grimes, ENO have put on this hugely enjoyable revival of their 2018 production of Iolanthe. Despite their cruel treatment at the hands of the Arts Council – is it malice, incompetence, or sheer arrogance? – ENO are on a roll, when it comes to the quality of their performances.
It gets the right light musical touch – Chris Hopkins doesn’t drive the score too hard and lets it breathe in a relaxed way. The orchestra plays beautifully and the singers don’t force their voices and have beautifully clear diction. We tend to take these things for granted but they matter.
Cal Mc Crystal has refreshed his production and it shows. Having Captain Shaw (actor Clive Mantle) introduce the show helpfully makes sense of the Fairies’ references to him in Act Two. Mantle comes across as very much at home at the Coliseum, despite all his TV and film work, and makes some suitably sharp (but not exactly unpredictable) witticisms. The production still contains lots of gags – possibly too many – including a pantomime cow, sheep (Strephon is meant to be a shepherd after all) unicorns, at least one horse, and a flamingo. And these fairies really do fly.
Read more…Unsettling Intensity
Shooting Hedda Gabler
by Nina Segal, after Henrik Ibsen
Rose Original and The Norwegian Ibsen Company at The Rose Theatre, Kingston until 21st October
Review by Brent Muirhouse
Entering the warmth of The Rose Theatre, in Nina Segal’s modern day reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s classic as Shooting Hedda Gabler, we are instantly transported to a scene as visually striking as it is emotionally haunting and cold. The play’s title, indicative of its multilayered nature, is a double meaning referring to the tragic fate of some in Ibsen’s original, and that the present setting is on set at a film studio, where an adaptation of the play is being made into a motion picture, featuring a former child acting star and an intense self-described auteur director.
Read more…Flies on Love Island
Sheila’s Island
by Tim Firth
The Questors at the Judi Dench Playhouse, Ealing until 14th October
Review by Polly Davies
Sheila’s Island is an interesting choice for the Questors autumn offering. Based on the earlier Neville’s island, also running alongside at Questors, the author Tim Firth has more recently recast the play to redress the gender balance by substituting female characters for the original’s middle aged men. As before, the play shows four middle managers, now all female, coping with a team building exercise gone wrong. Some overthinking by the keen team leader has caused a trip to the Lake District from their company base in Salford to turn from a gentle stroll through the countryside into a scary shipwreck on a deserted island in the middle of Derwentwater.
Read more…Apocalypse Neville
Neville’s Island
by Tim Firth
The Questors at the Judi Dench Playhouse, Ealing until 14th October
Review by Andrew Lawston
Four middle-class, middle-aged middle managers wash up on a tiny island in the Lake District, cut off from the mainland by fog, icy waters, and pike who, we are assured, are up to four feet long, and 30% jaw.
If the premise of Tim Firth’s 1992 play Neville’s Island sounds a little like a grown-up Lord of the Flies, a point which even the characters acknowledge from time to time, the crucial difference is that this is a comedy. While it opens in highly dramatic fashion, as Neville and Gordon splash through the shallows to wash up on the shore, Gordon’s sarcastic recriminations quickly get the audience laughing along.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 