Cat Walk on the Wild Side
Wildcat’s Last Waltz
by Kelly Hunter and Joshua Welch
Joshua Welch Company, Bitesize Festival at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith until 10th July
Review by Gill Martin
A potty-mouthed widow might look prissy in pink but her opening line of ‘I hate fucking dusting’ sums up her anarchic approach to life.
She also hates her bingo-playing mother-in-law to the same degree as she adores her late husband Geoffrey.
Joshua Welch stars and brings Wildcat’s Last Waltz to Hammersmith’s Riverside Studio’s Bitesize Festival with director Kelly Hunter.
In his hilarious depiction of an ageing Fitness Queen who could give Joe Wicks a run for his money (although she’s more of the Green Goddess generation) Welch sports a Mrs Merton style grey permed wig, rouge pink make-up to match pink striped skirt and cardie.
She longs for another 52 years of wedded bliss with a husband who showed his devotion by scratching the dry skin off her feet with a Stanley knife. No greater love …
Read more…Cut to the Chase
Moral Panic
by Stuart Warwick
Blue Dog Theatre, Bitesize Festival at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith until 10th July
Review by Gill Martin
You only have to look at the titles of the offerings at the Bitesize Festival playing at Hammersmith’s Riverside Studios to know you are in for a smorgasbord of treats.
I am the Bomb; Bad Sex; Boris Live; Boorish Trumpson; The Man who lives under the Bed; A Plague on All your Houses; Impromptu Shakespeare – they should give you a flavour.
Comedy, drag, dance, music, dark drama and audience participation are all on the menu. The invite runs: Come for an hour, an evening, a week. Leave inspired.
Read more…Break Down Recovery
As Real as Anything
by Andrew Cartmel
Thursday Theatre at the Hen and Chickens, Highbury until 9th July
Review by Heather Moulson
Things looked promising as we came in to a set dominated by a sofa, surrounded by vibrant art on the walls, and an inevitable drinks table, reminiscent of Abigail’s Party, an emphasis that this was someone’s home, and a backdrop for tension. The home in As Real as Anything is that of theatrical professionals, Duncan and Gwen. The setting also gave a promising entrance by the highly watchable Alasdair Shanks’ Duncan, a floundering theatre director bickering with his wife, Gwen, a producer … and also on shaky ground. Gwen was played by Rosie Edwards, who despite giving a skilled performance, seemed too young for the role. However, this did not hold back her strong stage presence
We were joined by weekend guests, Jake and Rosie, a playwright and actor respectively. This couple of characters were also on shaky ground. All four stars were dimming and desperation was passed round like canapés. Denim-clad Jake, played by Jamie Hutchins, went all out to be an enfant terrible working-class writer, while his spouse, played by Kelsey Short, was the actor desperate to recapture former stardom. However while this was beautifully done, it bordered on hardness.
Read more…Liquid Limber Light
Silent Lines
by Richard Maliphant, music by Dave Price after Georges Bizet
Russell Maliphant Dance Company at Richmond Theatre until 5th July
Review by Suzanne Frost
My one time boss, a brilliant and successful CEO and mother of two, used to say you always bring your whole person to work. Of course your performance in your job is impacted by whatever is going on in your life at that moment, and being a critic is no different. How you react to a performance has much to do with profane things such as how you got here, how comfortable your seat is, how busy your mind. I arrived at the Richmond Theatre in this particular instance barely two minutes before curtain-up, having handed over my newborn to my husband in the hallway in a mad dash handover, running to catch the train while my phone beeped frantically with breaking news alerts of the crumbling government. I have no time to read programme notes so enter the Maliphant universe with a blank open mind.
Read more…Pride and Perfect Performance
Pride and Prejudice
adapted by Janet Munsil from the novel by Jane Austen
Richmond Shakespeare Society at Fountain Gardens, York House, Twickenham until 9th July
Review by Viola Selby
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Pride and Prejudice is one of the most well-known and beloved stories of all time, whether your preference is for the BBC’s adaptation with Colin Firth’s infamous wet scene or for the Hollywood adaptation with Keira Knightly as the lead role of Elizabeth B or for one of the many theatre adaptations, there is a version for everyone.
However, Janet Munsil’s adaptation brings a whole new freshness of character and a quick-paced quality to this popular tale, whilst somehow making you feel you are going through the chapters of the book in detail. From the very beginning our senses are delighted through the exceptionally colourful and period perfect costumes designed by John Gilbert, Miriam King, Junis Olmscheid and their team. Each character is differentiated with a particular colour that in itself creates a mesmerising rainbow on the stage, complementing the delightfully British stately homes expertly created by the stage designer Junis Olmscheid, and skilfully enhanced by Paul Nicholson’s lighting design, who manage to create sets that mirror the grandeur of places such as York House with a few simple set pieces and floral bouquets. My particular favourite must be Pemberley, where portraits are ‘hung’ of the actors in character, a real unique touch to this unique play.
Read more…Over the Moon
Who Killed the Football Manager?
by Chris Martin
Edmundians at Cheray Hall, Whitton until 2nd July
Review by Heather Moulson
Just let me say that I was floored. I really thought I knew who had done it! That’s as much of the plot that I will give away.
In a cabaret style setting, we sat round at tables with anticipation, surrounded by enticing photographs of the suspects. My personal favourites were Trudy Goodnight and Terry Towling – especially his Kevin Keegan perm.
This inter-active murder mystery set in 1974 in a Headmistress’ study at an ailing boarding school, began promisingly with an authentic set, including the much-missed blackboard. Here we were introduced to Bob Slayer, played convincingly by Dave Young, as a bitter former football star; then Steve Swift, a hungry writer and Eileen Armstrong-Payne the desperate headmistress, admirably portrayed by Stephen Wink and Theresa McCulloch respectively. There was desperation all round with these three characters and plenty of motives.
Read more…O Tempora, O Mores
Tamerlano
by George Frederic Handel, libretto by Nicola Francesco Hyam
The Grange Festival, The Grange, Northington until 3rd July
Review by Mark Aspen
Power and its corruption … absolute power and its tyranny. These are themes that strike a tragically topical note. Muslim against Muslim … sects of Islam at war with each other. Yes, very 21st Century. Yet these are the subjects of Handel’s opera seria, Tamerlano, set in what we now call the Middle East … but in 1402.
The Tartar Sultan Timur (Tamerlano in Italian) had spent over thirty years waging jihads against fellow Muslim rulers whom he considered not to be keeping the faith, but in truth merely an excuse to build an Empire to rival that of the Moghuls that had collapsed some half-century earlier. The Ottoman Sultan Bayezid (Bajazet in Handel’s opera) was a hugely successful Turkish military leader, whose battle honours gained him the sobriquet “The Thunderbolt”. In July 1402, their two armies, each of over 100,000 men, squared up to each other on a battlefield near Ankara. However, by bribery and general skulduggery, Timur had caused whole regiments of Bayezid’s men to defect to his side. Timur prevailed and Bayezid was taken captive to Timur’s court in Bursa.
Read more…Very Little Voice
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice
by Jim Cartwright
Neil Gooding and Tiny Giant Productions at Richmond Theatre until 2nd July, then tour continues until 16th July
Review by Celia Bard
Hardly seems possible that it’s thirty years since the Award winning comedy-drama The Rise and Fall of Little Voice premiered at the National Theatre in London. Since then it has undergone several revivals, not only in the UK but in south-east Asia. The latest incarnation of Jim Cartwright’s creation brings to Richmond Theatre this Cinderella like story of a young girl trying to survive in an unloving and uncaring environment that suddenly changes to one of fame and glory.
The setting of Jim Cartwright’s story is a gritty northern town, switching from the oppressive living conditions of Little Voice’s family, and that of a sordid, low-down night club. The play follows the rise of a reclusive young woman as she discovers success, and then outlines her emotional difficulties when having to cope with the expectations of others, those of her mother, Mari and of Ray Say, an aging, fading, unsuccessful impresario.
Read more…Ours Is Better Than Good
Our Country’s Good
by Timberlake Wertenbaker
Teddington Theatre Club at Hampton Hill Theatre until 2nd July
Review by Viola Selby
After spending two years in lockdown, where travel and social gatherings became nigh on impossible, Our Country’s Good is a breath of fresh sea air and a trip of a lifetime.
With a tense and eerie beginning that set us on our course for a play that would take us on an emotional rollercoaster, we were introduced to the cast of ten playing twenty characters quite quickly. At first you may think that the audience would have to use a lot of imagination to identify one actor playing two completely different roles, such as a Scottish uptight Major and a friendly, funny Irish convict turned hangman or a brilliantly British upper class captain and an eccentric Cockney-wit convict, with the only costume change being a major’s to captain’s coat and wig, but with this casts’ incredible talent, each actor brings all the roles they play into life.
Read more…Pecking Order
The Birds
by Conor MacPherson, based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier
St Michaels Players at the St Michael’s Centre, Chiswick until 25th June, then at The Annexe Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe until 27th August
Review by David Stephens
A chilling version of Daphne du Maurier’s original 1952 short-story, this stage adaption of The Birds, written by Conor McPherson (The Girl from the North Country, The Weir) and staged by the St Michael’s Players in Chiswick is a self-styled ‘tense-psychodrama’, delivering intrigue and suspense in abundance and managing to succeed where many others fail: to produce a thriller that is worthy of the genre.
The mood is set from the start. As the play begins, the auditorium is plunged into darkness, broken only by a faint, ethereal, blue stage glow, the accompanying eerie music punctured only by the unsettling sound of beaks, seemingly tapping on the roof and walls of the theatre, climaxing in a cacophony of bird screeches, human screams and the sound of breaking glass. As the play begins, therefore, the audience, hearts already pounding with adrenaline, and, with eyes struggling to adjust to this dim light, half expecting to see this flock of frenzied birds, are relieved to find themselves inside the relative safety of a room in a ramshackle house, complete with makeshift bed, a table with portable cooking equipment and another table stood in front of a heavily barricaded window. Such is the strength of this immersive beginning, that the audience almost feel as though they themselves have narrowly escaped the angry flock by diving into this abandoned property, adding to the feeling that we are also part of the claustrophobic experience that is to follow.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 