To Whom Dunnit
It Could Be Any One of Us
by Alan Ayckbourn
SMDG at Hampton Hill Theatre until 22nd October
Review by Gill Martin
Alan Ayckbourn is one of Britain’s most successful and prolific playwrights with over eighty works to his name. It Could be Any One of Us, a murder mystery set in a creaky country house during a raging storm, is not one of his best.
The SMDG company, directed by Helen Smith, try manfully to inject some tension into the action but despite their efforts the outcome is flabby. It seems to lack Ayckbourn’s normal sparkling wit and pace, floundering under the weight of wordy passages. Maybe It Could be Any One of Us, his thirtieth play which premiered in 1983, is just showing its age, like the decrepit old house and its depressing inhabitants, siblings of the Chalke family.
This is a house of failures: The composer Mortimer (played by Vaughan Evans) whose music will never be heard in a concert hall; The painter Brinton (Paul Lawston) whose pictures will never grace a gallery; The author Jocelyn (Susan Reoch) who never finishes a book, 34 so far, let alone publishes one; The teenage Incredible Hulk of Jocelyn’s daughter Amy, who eschews singing, dancing, sculpting and pottery in favour of eating cake … lots of it. Toss into this dysfunctional soup Jocelyn’s partner Norris (Darren McIlroy), a detective who never solves a case.
Read more…Gothic Chills, Instant Thrills
Lucia di Lammermoor
by Gaetano Donizetti, libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, after Sir Walter Scott
Instant Opera at Normansfield Theatre, Teddington until 16th October
Review by Celia Bard
Quale trionfo! Many congratulations to Nicholas George and his Instant Opera company for bringing together such an artistic, talented ensemble of international performers: singers (soloists and chorus); musicians; stage crew; musical and stage directors. Although three hours in length, including interval and scene shifting times, so absorbing was the production that time passed as in the blink of an eye.
The opera is based on the historical novel by Sir Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor, published in 1819, and tells the story of two ancient families feuding with each other. Scott’s novel was set in the late 1600s, this production is set in Victorian times, which corresponds to the same period as the opera’s Italian composer, Gaetano Donizetti. Instead of the family tribulations during the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, this interpretation concentrates more on the hypocrisies and rigid behaviours of Victorian Britain. The politics of the original setting is somewhat lost but nevertheless it is a darkly, chilling interpretation, especially the final scenes.
Read more…Punchy Pithy Peaky
Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby
by Benoit Swan Pouffer and Stephen Knight
Rambert Productions at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre, Wembley until 6th November, then on tour until 27th May 2023
Review by Katie Hagan
Rambert’s Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby swept into the capital last week to open its London run at Wembley’s Troubadour Theatre. Created by Rambert’s artistic director Benoit Swan Pouffer together with Peaky Blinders’ originator Stephen Knight, Britain’s oldest dance company has produced a spectacle of dance, music and spoken word that’s a brilliant riff off the BBC’s popular series.
Opening at the bleaker-than-bleak tail-end of World War One, Rambert’s Peaky Blinders follows the trials and tribulations of antihero Tommy Shelby (played by the beautifully broody Guillaume Quéau), on his redemptive journey from a physically and mentally war-torn shell of a man, to gangster, lover, addict and back to gangster again.
Read more…Hyde and Seek
Jekyll & Hyde
by Gary McNair, based Robert Louis Stevenson
Reading Rep at Reading Rep Theatre until 29th October
Review by Nick Swyft
“I am not the good guy!” Audrey Brisson starts. “But you’re going to like me.” This is the keystone of the play, and while it is hard to like the character of Hyde, that wasn’t really the point. Very few of us are the good guys, yet we still like ourselves (mostly)!
Reading Rep Theatre have had quite a coup in staging the world premiere production of Jekyll & Hyde Gary McNair’s quirkily comic adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s iconic gothic novella, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
“Comic?”, you say; isn’t it a deeply psychological horror story?
Read more…Mobile and Mobility
Dead Man’s Cell Phone
by Sarah Ruhl
Network Theatre Company at The Network Theatre, Waterloo until 15th October
Review by Heather Moulson
I looked forward to my second visit to this enigmatic venue, tucked away quietly down a tunnel next to Waterloo Station, one of the many secrets of London, with its eighty-three years of thespian history. I made my way along to see the Network Theatre’s production of Dead Man’s Cell Phone, its title the premise of an original and intriguing story.
We opened up to a very strong scene set in a café, where a man is slumped dead at one table and Jean, at the next, goes over to answer his phone. This simple action bonds her for good with the very recently deceased Gordon, making this strong ground for unravelling a very human situation.
Read more…Love’s Memento Mori
La Bohème
by Giacomo Puccini, libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
Glyndebourne Productions at Glyndebourne Festival Theatre until 29th October, then on tour until 26th November
Review by Mark Aspen
The street … the street can be a metaphor. It is not home, but it is not strange. It is the way home, but it is a place to meet strangers.
The street forms the sole setting to director Floris Visser’s vision for his semi-figurative production of La Bohème. It is a street that Visser chanced upon strolling off the beaten track one evening in Paris. It seemed to fit the mood of La Bohème, he thought. His set designer Dieuweke Van Reij agreed; thence the genesis of the stark metallic grey setting for Glyndebourne’s 2022 production of Puccini’s most popular opera.
A false perspective gives the impression of a long cobbled street, the sort that always looks damp, receding into the distance. Tall windowless walls frame the sides, and the carriageway seems to disappear over a slight rise in the background. Alex Brok’s inspired lighting design means that characters vanish as they pass over the rise. Much use is made of side batten lighting to accentuate the starkness.
Read more…Flower Power
The Marriage of Figaro
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte
Glyndebourne Productions at Glyndebourne Festival Theatre until 28th October, then on tour until 24th November
Review by Eugene Broad
The Marriage of Figaro is a stalwart of classical opera. Widely viewed as one of the most perfect, complete operas – Brahms wrote that “every number in Figaro is for me a miracle” – it has become almost omnipresent in the opera repertoire. As a small data point, the archives of this website hold several different reviews of several different productions of The Marriage of Figaro, done by several different production companies – a clear testament to its popularity. As a wider data point, it regularly appears in the Top Ten lists of both performers and audiences of their favourite operas.
Read more…Italian Bagpipes??
Lucia di Lammermoor : Preview
Instant Opera at Normansfield Theatre, Teddington 14th – 16th October
Preview: Opera critic Thomas Forsythe discusses the forthcoming production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor with Instant Opera’s Nicholas George
TF: Hello Nick. Scotland has been a momentously topical place over the past few weeks. Donizetti’s opera about aristocratic families set in a Scottish stately-home, and running just a month after the mourning period for our late beloved Queen, seems almost like a tribute to Queen Elizabeth, whose last days were spent in just such a Scottish stately-home. Clearly, it is fortuitously so, as I imagine you have been planning Lucia di Lammermoor for some considerable time.
NG: Yes, hello Thomas, our production was originally planned for October 2020. Pestilence, war, climate change, political and economic turmoil, have also all happened since, not that anyone needs reminding. The tribulations of two ancient feuding Scottish families depicted in this melodrama seem almost sane in comparison! But seriously, one of the unique and exciting things about this production is the way that we will enhance and celebrate the evocative performance space at Normansfield Theatre, in a way I guarantee never seen before in its history!
Read more…Debs, Hyenas and Nazis
The Inn of the Dawn Horse
by Joanna Foster
Joanna Foster Theatre Company at Chats Palace Arts Centre, Homerton, 7th October
Review by Heather Moulson
After a two-hour car journey from Twickenham to Homerton, a sudden downpour and fine dining with a sandwich under a bus shelter (Pastrami – Co-Op’s own brand, recommended) things were beginning to feel a little surreal. So I was all set up and ready to see The Inn of the Dawn Horse and gain an insight into Leonora Carrington, the stunning surrealist painter who left us in 2011. The charming venue Chats Palace, a former library with grand ceilings, has a bohemian air and is colourful and seemed quite appropriate to the subject.
The Inn of the Dawn Horse references Carrington’s self portrait of the same name, featuring horses and hyenas, recurring motifs in her work.
Read more…Wisdom of Solomon
The Caucasian Chalk Circle
by Bertolt Brecht, adapted by Steve Waters
Rose Original Productions at The Rose Theatre, Kingston until 22nd October
Review by Celia Bard
This play has its roots in Hebrew lore, in the story recorded at 1 Kings 3:16-18 of two mothers claiming before King Solomon that each was the real mother of an infant son. Should you be curious as to how the dispute is resolved in this version of the story, do go and see this superb production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle performed by a talented and highly versatile group of actors skilled in all aspects of acting, dance, movement and song. The production is lengthy, but it succeeds in entertaining and enthralling an audience throughout, as judged by the rapturous applause of the audience at the end of the show.
Steve Waters’ adaption of the play is close in spirit to the original. It is about the impact of war on people. This version relocates the story from warring Soviet communes to a modern-day refugee camp, one in which refugees are divided in their opinions about the use of land, whether the valley should stay as it is or whether it should be given over to the building of a dam. A singer enters the camp and helps to resolve the conflict through the re-enactment of the story of the Chalk Circle, inviting the refugees to participate and thereby creating a story within a story.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 