Sppooked
The Addams Family Musical
by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice
BROS Theatre Company at Richmond Theatre until 29th October
Review by Heather Moulson
It was nearly Halloween, but I didn’t know what to expect from this musical based on the sixties TV show. Could they really recreate that iconic and so morbidly enticing Addams family?! However, after a delightful glimpse of Thing, barehanded obviously, through the thick tabs, we opened up to a stunning beginning, with a fabulous tableau of the family behind a mesh curtain. The glamorous and kitsch macabre family were surrounded by gothic splendour, the focal point being a sweeping candlelit staircase. Starting with the showstopper When You’re an Addams we were introduced to the whole undead cast, clad head-to-toe in atmospheric detail and intricate make-up. The rule that one should never begin with a showstopper was disproved and showed us that you can do exactly that.
Read more…Abrasive, Acrobatic, Absorbing
Glass Human
by Samantha Fernando, libretto by Melanie Wilson
Glyndebourne Productions at the Jerwood Studio, Glyndebourne until 29th October, then on tour until 5th December
Review by Mark Aspen
Opera in the popular mind tends to be associated with “grand”, everything large scale: sets, orchestra, chorus, five hours of strong plot and heightened emotions. “Wagnerian” becomes an adjective in general use. You can go really big and have more than one orchestra or chorus; think something like Berlioz’s Les Troyens. Opera is seen as extrovert!
Glyndebourne’s new chamber opera Glass Human, in contrast, in a minimalistic piece, simple set, five musicians, three singers. Heightened emotions are there, but it is a mood piece. This is opera as introvert! … Its introversion, though, is its strength. It looks at one human emotion, loneliness, and surgically dissects it.
Read more…Control, Alt, Delete
A Dead Body in Taos
By David Farr
Fuel at Wilton’s Musical Hall, Whitechapel until 12th November, then on tour until 19th November
Review by Eleanor Marsh
A Matter of Life and Death, Ghost, The Sixth Sense and countless other movies, TV series and books deal with the endlessly fascinating subject matter of what happens when we die and how those we leave behind cope. What happens when technology steps in and it appears that dying isn’t quite what it seems?
David Farr brings his wealth of screenwriting and theatrical experience to this difficult subject in a treat of a play that is not always comfortable to watch, but is in turn equally moving, funny and disturbing.
Read more…Other Foot
Reboot Festival 2022
Week Two
Kibo Productions at the Barons Court Theatre until 29th October
Review by Heather Moulson
Barons Court Theatre is bijou indeed, tucked below stairs at the Curtain’s Up pub in W14. The lit square stage and the darkness of the auditorium brought back many memories of disco days. However, thankfully the audience declined to dance and instead we were brought some new talented writers and performances. The Reboot Festival was into week two of emerging writers and I looked forward to the six short plays.
Read more…Bedpan Humour
The Hypochondriac
by Molière adapted by Richard Bean
Richmond Shakespeare Society at the Mary Wallace Theatre until 29th October
Review by Gill Martin
Put on your scrubs and surgical mask to enter this household of illness, imagined by Molière in The Hypochondriac.
Set in the era of Louis XIV’s of France this classic farce pokes fun at a man obsessed by his own imaginary illnesses. And at pompous doctors who take advantage of gullible patients as they practice their art. It’s a clever scathing satire brim-full of trickery, greed and strong characters. It’s no place for the squeamish as there’s a bottomless joke pit of anal examinations, enemas, stool examination and urine drinking in director Maxina Cornwell’s production for the Richmond Shakespeare Society.
Read more…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…
Mark Aspen 