Fiery Red
Oliver! Jr
by Lionel Bart
Dramacube Productions, Hampton Hill Red Cast at Hampton Hill Theatre, until 7th May
Review by Sadie Williams
As the curtains drew back to reveal the brilliantly staged set (designed by Hannah Callarco), the audience was instantly transported to Victorian London. The steps, the tunnel and the dreary but realistic brickwork simultaneously presented an atmosphere of destitution, but also gave the opportunity for endless theatrical possibilities. The fantastic young cast of 8–12-year-olds set the tone with vigour and vibrancy, and I felt that a West End production would struggle to do Food Glorious Food more justice. The orphans were brilliantly dressed by Jo Scholes and their dirty faces helped to convey their loveless, dire fate. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, Huey Chalmers lit up the stage as Oliver with his angelic singing voice and heartfelt performance. A larger- than-life Mr Bumble, played by Raphael Cavendish also helped to keep the energy high and contagious.
Read more…Dance, Music and Much More!
Oliver! Jr
by Lionel Bart
Dramacube Productions, Twickenham Green Cast at Hampton Hill Theatre, until 7th May 2023
Review by Sadie Williams
It may have been their final performance, but this young cast of 8-12-year-olds certainly showed no signs of complacency. The wit and entertainment of this piece was conveyed with expert direction from seasoned performer and director Matthew Bunn, and he didn’t waste a moment as we were treated to a menacing, Cockney, pre- show announcement, threatening that we’d be “brown bread” if we didn’t turn off our electronic devices. We’d been warned!
Read more…Singing the Blues
Oliver! Jr
by Lionel Bart
Dramacube Productions, Twickenham Blue Cast at Hampton Hill Theatre until 7th May
Review by Heather Moulson
Matthew Bunn’s prolific multi casting of this iconic and ambitious production paid off once again in his detailed directing Oliver! Jr. The Twickenham Blue cast, like other casts before them, were impressive. Each actor played these well-known characters with their own unique interpretation.
Read more…Mellow Yellow
Oliver! Jr
by Lionel Bart
Dramacube Productions, Twickenham Yellow Cast at Hampton Hill Theatre until 7th May
Review by Heather Moulson
With director Matthew Bunn’s huge cast and an ambitious musical, we looked forward to this production of Oliver! Jnr performed by Hampton Hill’s Yellow Cast.
With the standard silver bricked set, its centrepiece a sinister tunnel, the cast opened up with the exuberant Food Glorious Food. The orphans of the workhouse were all credible with good voices and their black and white tattered attire. Oliver, played by Imogen Logan, despite initial reticence, became fiery and engaging. Oliver’s wistful song Where Is Love? and the moody lighting made the undertaker’s scene atmospheric. Not to mention the formidable Mr Bumble, played beautifully by Wilf Perkins.
Read more…Sharing Caring
Low Level Panic
by Clare McIntyre
The Questors at the Studio, Questors Theatre, Ealing until 13th May
Review by Brent Muirhouse
The play Low Level Panic, written by Clare McIntyre in the 1980s, is hugely thought-provoking, slaloming rapidly through a trail of dark comedy and serious dramatic themes to explore the pervasive issue of objectification, and the obstacles, invasiveness and fear it creates for a woman in modern society. Despite being written in the 1980s, Low Level Panic remains all too relevant today.
Read more…Spiralling Round
The Circle
by W. Somerset Maugham
OT Theatre Productions at The Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond until 17th June
Review by Harry Zimmerman
Somerset Maugham’s 1921 comedy, which twists romantic fates across two generations of a squabbling family, is given a fast paced, yet effectively intimate treatment in Tom Littler’s first production as Artistic Director of The Orange Tree
Elizabeth is married to Arnold, a stolid, buttoned up MP obsessed with his career and ensuring that appearances are properly maintained at all times. He appears to be the personification of the stiff upper lip.
Arnold has good reason to be as repressed as he is. At the age of five, his mother, the famed society beauty Lady Catherine “Kitty” Champion-Cheney, scandalously ran off with her lover, Lord “Hughie” Porteus, whose apparently relentless march towards the Prime Ministership was derailed by his romantic entanglement with her.
Read more…King Charles III
6th May 2023
“Grant that I may be a blessing to all Thy children, of every faith and belief, that together we may discover the ways of gentleness and be led into the paths of peace”
The King’s Prayer
God Save the King
Menace and Morrrrre !
Oliver! Jr
by Lionel Bart
Dramacube Productions, Twickenham Purple Cast at Hampton Hill Theatre until 6th May*
Review by Gill Martin
Rollicking, rumbustious, raucous one minute – plaintive, powerful with plenty of pathos the next.
That’s the mood of Oliver! Jr now rocking the stage of the Hampton Hill Theatre over a momentous weekend … with only the minor distraction of a coronation.
Four shows a day this weekend will offer a welcome break from all the pomp and pageantry as Charles Dickens’ classic tale comes to life with a Dramacube production, directed by Matthew Bunn, featuring teenage casts bursting with talent and enthusiasm.
Read more…Land Milked of Honey
The Beekeeper of Aleppo
by Christy Lefteri, adapted by Nesrin Alrefaai and Matthew Spangler
Nottingham Playhouse at Richmond Theatre until 6th May, then on tour until 1st July
Review by Harry Zimmerman
Based on Christy Lefteri’s 2019 internationally bestselling novel, and adapted for the stage by Nesrin Alrefaai and Matthew Spangler, The Beekeeper of Aleppo tells the story of Nuri, a humble beekeeper from war-torn Aleppo, and his wife Afra, as they escape the perils of the Syrian civil war and travel across the Middle East and Europe to be reunited with Nuri’s cousin and mentor, Mustafa.
Read more…Getting in a Flap
Much Ado about Nothing
by William Shakespeare
The Questors at the Judi Dench Playhouse, Ealing until 6th May
Review by Brent Muirhouse
As soon as I’d read that Anne Neville’s direction of Much Ado About Nothing was to be set in 1923 and would feature Gatsby-esque flappers, jazz hands and art deco decadence of the Charleston dance craze, the likes of which Shakespeare himself was at least 400 years too early to embrace (alas, poor playwright), I was entertained by the mere premise.
Much like being submerged into the glitz and glamour of one of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous literary son’s parties, it wasn’t long into the production that I – and the audience and large – felt invited to enjoy the revelry, with anybody leftover surely swayed by the multiple eight-string ukulele bops conjured up by the recurring Balthasar (the self-confessed mini-instrument obsessed Julian Smith). Yes, this is Shakespeare, but with the surprising yet welcome balance of the Bard’s words with barre chords.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 