Joyful Exploration of the Obscure
Loyola
by Domenico Zipoli
El Parnaso Hyspano at the Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre, Dalston until 12th August
Review by Patrick Shorrock
To be brutally frank, I am not convinced that Zipoli’s Loyola is actually an opera. It is contemplative rather than dramatic, and a staging doesn’t seem to add very much to what is a long cantata or a short oratorio. But, having got the pedantry out of my system, I can focus on celebrating Zipoli’s marvellous score, a glorious piece of musical fusion combining Baroque oratorio with South American influences from the people who were intended to perform it.
Read more…Dystopia in Suburbia
Trouble in Tahiti
by Leonard Bernstein
Arcola Theatre, part of the Grimeborn Festival at Arcola Theatre until 12th August
Review by Patrick Shorrock
This short show is forty-five minutes of pure delight. My only complaint is that, after Bernstein incorporated it into his later full length opera A Quiet Place, Grimeborn didn’t give us the longer work. Maybe next year.
Written in 1952, this gentle satire hasn’t really dated, as suburban married couple Sam and Dinah, imprisoned by the stereotypical gender roles they have adopted, express their mutual unhappiness and frustration, something they find easier to do to the audience than to each other.
Read more…Fan Fair
The School for Scandal
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
YAT, Coward Studio at the Hampton Hill Theatre until 10th August
Review by Andrew Lawston
In a world where reputations can be built and demolished in the blink of an eye on social media, The School for Scandal is a particularly timely play with its clique of rumour-mongering gossips. YAT’s “heavily-abridged” Edinburgh Fringe preview production, wastes no time in labouring any contemporary resonance, however, preferring to cram as much of Sheridan’s script as possible into the 55 minute EdFringe run time.
Read more…Tight, Terse and Tense
Trustfall
by Carly Durrer and Jade Harris-Tyler
222 Productions at The Hen and Chickens Theatre, Highbury 7th August
Review by Heather Moulson
Fresh off the plane, with a quest for Tesco’s, Carly walks headlong into an all-too meaningful reunion with her friend, Jade. This was just the first layer that peels away as many more truths were stripped bare, in Carly Durrer and Jade Harris-Tyler’s new play, Tustfall.
Make-up woes, hard partying, excessive alcohol consumption, are part of many shifts and turns that reveal so much about this relationship. It would be easy to say that Tustfall is simply a play about enduring friendship; but the subtext is far more complex.
Disappointments, betrayals, misunderstandings and mental health issues are featured in sharp focus. A friendship is brutally put to the test, and survives.
Read more…Deadlier
Sin, the Musical
by John-Michael Mahoney
Dmii Productions at The Studio, Other Palace Theatre, Victoria until 4th August
Review by Vince Francis
Well, time flies, doesn’t it? Around a year ago, I reviewed Sin – the Musical at the Arcola in Dalston at its premiere. I summarised the show as having potential overall, but in need of attention on a couple of production points. I was therefore surprised and delighted to be asked to have another look at it following its transfer to the Other Palace.
I was unable to get to the press night, but I’m pleased to be able to report that the show was well received by a supportive audience on the night I was able to attend. I’m also pleased to be able to report that one of my biggest concerns from the original show has been addressed head-on and I’ll get to that in a minute.
The synopsis on the website indicates that the show explores what happens when a large sum of money is unexpectedly injected in to a small, close-knit group of petty criminals in the New York of the 1920s. In so doing, it uses the key characters to provide manifestations of the seven deadly sins.
Read more…Naughty Neon Nursery-Tales
La Cenerentola
by Gioachino Rossini, libretto by Jacopo Ferretti
Opera Kipling at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, Highgate until 6th August
Review by Brent Muirhouse
The story of Cinderella is no stranger to anyone, yet in Rossini’s operatic version La Cenerentola, performed by Opera Kipling (in the wonderful setting Upstairs at the Gatehouse, Highgate), it transforms into something even more enchanting. A gloriously fun and very welcome fusion with 1980s pop culture weaves it further into a vibrant tapestry of references, resembling a much-loved, well-worn vinyl record from the ‘Now! That’s What I Call Music!’ series. As every scene becomes a figurative dance-off between the familiar fairytale and the decade nostalgia that peppers the narrative with an incredibly pleasing attention to detail. Cinderella in this rendition, directed by Guido Martin-Brandis, is an harmonious hybrid that enchants and engages, a fluorescent-hued love letter both to opera and a much-loved era.
Read more…Fab Five Folk
This Girl
by Mike Howl, music by Frankie Connor, Alan Crowley and Billy Kinsley
Mike Howl Company at Upstairs at the Gatehouse Theatre, until 2nd August
Review by Heather Moulson
The zebra crossing in Abbey Road is well-known to Beatles aficionados. Not too far away in North London, it is well worth the uphill climb from the tube station to this charming venue in Highgate Village, which was once a Victorian music-hall, for an exciting production that tells the Beatles story from the viewpoint of the late Cynthia Lennon. This Girl also features eight brand-new songs.
Read more…Emotions on a Knife Edge
Cavalleria Rusticana
by Pietro Mascagni, libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci
Pagliacci
by Ruggero Leoncavallo
West Green House Opera, at the Theatre on the Lake, Hartley Wintney, until 30th July
Review by Mark Aspen
It may be forty degrees and upwards in Sicily and only fifteen in damp Hampshire, but the West Green House Opera brings all the heat and passion of a Sicilian summer to its enchanting opera gardens with the inseparable Italian operatic pair, affectionately known as Cav and Pag.
Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci are opera’s torrid twins, or rather cousins, having different composers, but both from the same pedigree, the verismo school of late nineteenth century Italian literature and opera.
The realismimplied in the term verismo refers to opera that is not about the wealthy, the nobility, royalty or divinity; but about everyday people. One hesitates to say “ordinary, as the subjects of these operas are just as extraordinary as their higher-class counterparts.
Read more…Until Things Do Us Part
Maybe I Do…?
by Cova Camblor
Covadonga Camblor at The Hen and Chickens Theatre, then at the Rosemary Branch Theatre, Islington until 5th August
Review by Heather Moulson
Carmen, dressed in full white wedding regalia, waits to get married … on Zoom. However, Stuart is her real love. That is just the beginning of a wealth of misunderstandings and heartbreaks, as Carmen takes us on a bitter-sweet quest for love and other fulfilments. Despite painful life lessons, Carmen keeps her humour and exuberance, while she is to be admired for her steely determination to get back in the ring after suffering many blows.
Maybe I do…? is a one-woman show from the point of view of a Spanish girl living in London. With culture clashes, language barriers and other bumpy rides, no detail is spared.
Read more…Grave From Beyond the Grave
Glad To Be Dead?
by Donna and Jade Flack
MIM Theatre at The Hen and Chickens Theatre, then on tour until 8th October
Review by Heather Moulson
This dark-edged piece makes a bold start to the Camden Fringe. Written by mother and daughter team, Donna and Jade Flack, Glad To Be Dead? is gothic and chilling … and totally absorbing.
Long dead characters, some well-known, some not, are confined in a limbo dimension. They can look out of a window that only allows them to see so far.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 