Under the Bed
The Red Within
by Oihane Rodríguez
Hecate Theatre Company at the Drayton Arms Theatre, Earl’s Court until 30th January
Review by Heather Moulson
A tense soundtrack and studied lighting created a fitting atmosphere for The Red Withinas we were greeted, as such, by Rosario amongst a striking tableau of four women. Rosario opened up to us with pathos, turmoil and wit, slotting us nicely in the picture. Unravelling a strict Catholic upbringing and alcoholic issues, Rosario revealed her ultimate act of homicide. The other three women who could so easily be taken for the lead’s alter ego ’s, the loving and protective aunt, Eladia, sister Alma and close friend Regina, revealed themselves at a more leisurely pace,. These characters had personalities and issues of their own but they were still vital for the dimensions in Rosario’s story.
Read more…Raw
Welcome Home
by Willy Hudson
Daisy Hale at the Soho Theatre until 11th February
Review by Denis Valentine
So writing a review with the last words of the shows lead in mind and the knowledge that anyone giving too much away of will result him finding them and biting a certain appendage off, it is time to talk about Welcome Home.
The show opens the audience up to the life and times of its lead Willy Hudson and is an autobiographical tale that leads almost up to the literal moment of his stepping on stage. It becomes very apparent from the opening moments that the show is very much crafted in its lead’s image and the audience will be getting not only a piece of theatre but also a bit of a rock concert at the same time.
Read more…Echoes of Futures Past
Escaped Alone and What If, If Only
by Caryl Churchill
The Questors Theatre at Questors Studio, Ealing until 4th February
Review by Andrew Lawston
Two challenging plays from Caryl Churchill take up the intimate space of the Studio at the Questors Theatre tonight. Both are brisk, under an hour in length, and walk a fine line between bleak and comic.
Escaped Alone brings four ladies together in a back garden on a summer’s day, to drink tea and gossip. Except this meandering and often witty conversation is punctuated by monologues, often from the visiting Mrs Jarrett who relates impending visions of apocalypse. As the back-projected sunny sky darkens, Mrs Jarrett begins to relate stories of four hundred thousand tonnes of rock crushing a town, and the gruesome lives led by the survivors. Or she describes the public health crisis that resulted from food supplies being redirected to television cookery shows.
Read more…And Then What?
Two Billion Beats
by Sonali Bhattacharyya
Orange Tree Productions at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond until 4th February
Review by Louis Mazzini
When a theatre is full of young people you know that the artistic director – and the cast and playwright – are doing something right, especially as some West End theatres and amateur groups are still struggling to recover their audience to pre-Covid levels. The Orange Tree Theatre, in Richmond, is one of the best small theatres in London and great things are expected from Tom Littler, the new artistic director formerly at Jermyn St Theatre. And things have got off to a good start with Two Billion Beats, an engaging and realistic two-hander, directed in this revival by Nimmo Ismail and Tian Brown-Sampson.
Read more…Stainless?
Steel Magnolias
by Robert Harling
Trafalgar Theatre Productions at Richmond Theatre until 28th January and then on tour until 22nd July
Review by Patrick Shorrock
Best known through the 1989 film, Steel Magnolias did actually start life as a play, which is presumably the justification for reviving it and taking it on tour now. It certainly challenges the view that the only certainties in life are death and taxes by adding a third: the importance of getting your hair done. Truvi and the patrons of her salon see their efforts to keep beautiful as battle armour against the disappointments of life. ‘Nobody has natural beauty’, Truvi tells her apprentice Annelle: beauty requires hard work and plenty of hairspray. They achieve a degree of female solidarity amidst the bickering, as their hair and nails are turned into something very different from what nature intended … …
Read more…No Spine Left Untingled
The Edge of Darkness
by Brian Clemens
Teddington Theatre Club at the Hampton Hill Theatre until 28th January
Review by Heather Moulson
As befits an Edwardian thriller, the set of The Edge of Darkness consists of a drawing room with intricate oak panelling, sinister French doors, mysterious hallways and an intriguing bureau, all picked out in very moody lighting. The authenticity and atmosphere of this period piece, with gas lamps lit accordingly, sets the audience up nicely for this suspenseful three act play by Brian Clemens, who wrote this creepy tale in 1975.
Every character is under suspicion in this gothic yarn. Even the somewhat bawdy yet sensitive maid, Penny, who is played with light relief by a vibrant Lara Parker, getting every detail right when waiting table, could be the one. When the Cranwells bring their estranged daughter Emma home after losing her memory for three years, we know there is dark underlying doubt.
Read more…Not Skin Deep
Beauty and the Beast
by Loz Keal
Edmundians at Cheray Hall, Whitton until 28th January
Review by Alex Montague
The Edmundians dependably produce an annual pantomime using the post-Christmas slot to provide cheer and enjoyment to family members of all ages. This year was no different, and under the reliable direction of Jackie Howting, with additional production by Ellen Walker Dibella, they incorporate all the stock pantomime characters and included lots of audience participation, boos and cheers and even a ghostly ‘he’s behind you’ scene in this version of Beauty and the Beast written by Loz Keal. We were also treated to a number of large scale music and dance numbers, some using the whole cast, which was a fresh and innovative approach for the Edmundians. Young Izabelle Sochanik-Oliver’s impeccable choreography made full use of the large cast of adults and children, who clearly had spent many hours practicing their moves to get crisply in-synch and step-perfect.
Read more…‘Everyone Should Have a Fantasy’
Little Dorrit
by David Hovatter after Charles Dickens
Questors Theatre at the Judi Dench Playhouse, Ealing until 28th January
Review by Poppy Rose Jervis
‘In this bold adaptation of the iconic novel, we are transported to India during the British Raj, where Little Dorrit, a young, loyal daughter, works tirelessly as a seamstress to provide for her family … an impassioned adaptation that powerfully satirises class, wealth and British-Indian relations during colonial rule.’
As a hefty tome of some 600 pages with numerous subplots, an adaptation or ‘re-imagining’ of Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens in any form would be no small or easy task. Originally published as a serial and featuring the personally significant and oft referred to by Dickens, ‘Debtors Prison’, in which Little Dorrit was born, the story is set in London, in the 1820s, with a number of characters.
This theatrical production, however, written and directed by David Hovatter, has fewer characters (but even so, has a cast of sixteen playing over twenty roles). With its heavily satirised personalities and some fragile, sensitive souls, physical theatre and alternative text, it not only gives us a new perspective, but successfully transports us to India to do so. In this insightful script, Little Dorrit’s father is a Prince who has lost his fortune but not his airs and expectations and sees nothing wrong as an older male who mourns the loss of his wife, with his young daughter devoting her life to finding ways to keep and support him. She feeds him by sewing all day and going without food herself.
Read more…Beware the Green-Eyed Monster
Othello
by William Shakespeare
Frantic Assembly at the Lyric Hammersmith until 11th February
Review by Patrick Shorrock
This production of Othello by Frantic Assembly, now at the Lyric Hammersmith, originated in 2008, but still feels like a fresh take on one of Shakespeare’s most durable plays. Described as ‘adapted for Frantic Assembly by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett’, it’s not for lovers of heritage drama or traditionalist purists, but is very much alive theatrically. The text is brutally pruned. It’s all over in less than two and half hours with an interval. Much of the specific (and unnecessary) context about Othello being employed as a soldier by Venice has gone. It’s not made clear what Cyprus refers to in this version, and nor does it need to be.
Read more…“People Do Dreadful Things”
The Hollow
by Agatha Christie
Richmond Shakespeare Society at the Mary Wallace Theatre, Twickenham until 28th January
Review by Louis Mazzini
There’s no gainsaying Agatha Christie, the Queen of crime fiction and – incredible as it may seem – Britain’s most popular woman playwright, the first to have three plays running simultaneously in the West End. Indeed, two of Christie’s plays are on in central London today, and for decades her work has been a staple for community theatre companies. It is therefore surprising to find that The Hollow is the first time in its ninety year history that Richmond Shakespeare Society has “done a Christie”, in this case her own adaptation of her 1946 Hercule Poirot novel of the same name.
Like most of her plays, The Hollow is set in what one critic described as “Agatha Christie time”. Rodney Figaro’s magnificent set, complemented by the music and some of the costumes, nicely evokes the 1930s ambience with which Christie is generally associated, but other touches suggest the 1950s – the play was first produced professionally in 1951 – despite the presence of servants.
The Hollow takes place in the eponymous home of Lord and Lady Angketell. The couple are played by Geraint Thompson and a sparkling Frances Billington, who knows exactly what kind of play she is in and exactly how to play her character, an eccentric aristo with a flair for forgetfulness and a shrewd eye for the truth. Christie’s servants are usually entertaining and the Angkatells’ are no exception. James Phillips is suitably mordant as the butler and Asha Gill delightful as a star-struck maid; both actors have excellent comic timing. Milly Newman plays the Angkatells’ daughter Henrietta, a sculptress whose current work-in-progress is somewhere offstage left where it is admired from time to time by members of the cast, all of whom seem to have a different idea of its height and position.
There are also several houseguests: John Cristow, a self-centred doctor played with the right amount of disdain by Hugh Cox, and Gerda, and Cristow’s subjugated wife, an excellent Katie Abbott. Edie Moles is the Monroesque Midge – “half an Angkatell” – a woman-child whom no one takes seriously, least of all the man she adores, Edward Angkatell, portrayed by a suave Luke Daxon. A good whodunnit also needs an unexpected guest and in The Hollow this is provided by Anna Piggott, channelling Lady Gaga as a vivacious Veronica Craye, a vampy actress whose entrances – and jewellery – light up the stage. Surprise, surprise … … there is a murder, which leads to the arrival of Inspector Colquhoun and Sergeant Penny, played at just about the right speed by Mark Saunders and Graham Schafer.
Originally billed as a comedy thriller, The Hollow is at times very funny and though some of the appreciative audience laughter certainly wouldn’t have been expected by Christie, it would for the most part by the director, Derek Stringer, who has done a very good job in animating this classic of the 1950s. With a whodunnit the “thing” that matters most is the plot and the performances of the victim and murderer. It would be wrong to identify them but, despite Christie’s somewhat ponderous script, the actors concerned are thoroughly convincing, especially the killer in the final scene when … … but that would be telling.
Louis Mazzini, January 2023
Photography by Jessica Warrior
Mark Aspen 