Intense Conviction
La Bohème
after Giacomo Puccini, new English libretto by Philip Lee and David Eaton
KHT and Making Productions at King’s Head Theatre, Islington until 28th May
Review by Patrick Shorrock
Putting on La Bohème these days can be tricky, as Puccini’s characters can easily come across as rather middle-aged and respectable. By the time your operatic career has developed sufficiently for you to sing Mimi or Rodolpho, you are probably going to be too old to pass muster as a young person living on the edge. I remember how David Freeman’s Opera North production asked some interesting questions about whether these young people are making a stand against convention or simply afraid of middle age and responsibility. He had one of the characters – now a grand old man of the artistic establishment – introduce each act with reminiscences about his time as a young Turk.
Read more…Avoid Being Void
When We Are Married
by J.B. Priestley
Teddington Theatre Club at Hampton Hill Theatre until 21st May
Review by Alex Tustain
In 1908, when this play was set, imagine the consequences of discovering, after 25 years, that your church marriage had been conducted by someone unauthorised to do so and it would seem your marriage was null and void! You have been ‘living in sin’ for 25 years! This is what happens to three couples upstanding in their small Yorkshire community and of course the consequences of this to the individual couples and their families would have been devastating and shocking to the core, to their standing in the community. Add to this a small community where gossip travels fast, especially when you have a less than honest and most indiscrete housekeeper to spread it!
Read more…Jubilee Japes
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by William Shakespeare, adapted by Paul Stacey
Reading Rep at Reading Rep Theatre until 5th June
Review by Nick Swyft
Shakespeare’s plays have been with us for for over four hundred years and their presentation is constantly updated to relate to modern audiences. So it is fitting that the final play in the Reading Rep: Reborn season (which celebrates the reopening in its new playhouse on the King’s Road campus in Reading following the pandemic) should pay homage to the Bard. Reading Rep has been going for around ten years and continues to go from strength to strength.
This production, based with some apologies (and a few generous cuts) on Shakespeare’s text, is a play within a play, within a play, within a play … etc. Confused? … You will be! While the format is entertaining, there could be a limit to how far you can go with this.
Read more…Brooding Edginess
Dead Boy Café
by Grant Corr
Questors at The Studio, Ealing until 21st May
Review by Heather Moulson
This was my first visit to The Questors, and I was very impressed by this lovely theatre set in the leafy Ealing. It certainly deserves its stellar reputation, and it made me appreciate that I was late coming to the party. Dead Boy Café, currently playing at the Questors’ Studio is well worth a visit.
This is the première, belated by the pandemic, of a gripping new play, written by Grant Corr, the winner of The Questors’ National Playwriting Competition 2019, who has moved on to further success by having several of his plays staged. Dead Boy Café is a worthy winner giving a hundred minutes of strong writing and sharp dialogue … although it could have got away with an interval.
Read more…Melodious Enlightenment
Dido and Aeneas
by Henry Purcell, libretto by Nahum Tate
Richmond Opera at the Normansfield Theatre, Teddington, then at OSO Arts Centre, Barnes until 15th May
Review by Vicki Naylor
They know, the people who live in and around Barnes, how fortunate they are to have the OSO Arts Centre (The Old Sorting Office) as a theatre, and a theatre bar with a restaurant, overlooking Barnes Green. There, dogs and children play and swans rear their cygnets in and around Barnes Pond with its tall bullrushes.
This brave and innovative theatre brought us, on a rather dull, damp Sunday afternoon, an example of the early English Enlightenment, an opera in the Baroque form by Henry Purcell (1659-1695), Dido and Aeneas.
Read more…More than Others
Animal Farm
by George Orwell, adapted by Robert Icke
Children’s Theatre Partnership in association with Birmingham Rep at Richmond Theatre until 14th May, then tour continues until 28th May
Review by Celia Bard
Human puppetry productions like Warhorse (Michael Morpurgo), The Lion King (Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi) and Equus (Peter Schaffer), judging from their continuing success in entertaining audiences, indicate a change of mind-set in adult audiences regarding their acceptance of puppetry as a major form of entertainment. Puppetry need not be one of the things we abandon after childhood. Puppetry origins go back a long way, as far back to Egyptian times and the discovery of wire-controlled puppets in Egyptian tombs, and to ancient Greece when productions of The Illiad were often staged with marionettes. Mark Aspen of Aspen Reviews reminded me when in discussion about Animal Farm, that human puppetry forms and the wearing of masks are often be seen in opera productions. So why the appeal? Basil Jones, executive producer at Handspring says that “Human puppets do something different. They are metaphors for our struggle to live … getting out of bed, sitting in a chair, and that these ‘micro struggles’ are released better by puppets acting as human actors themselves.”
Read more…Icy Secrets
Glacier Lake
by Andrew Cartmel
Thursday Theatre at the OSO Arts Centre, Barnes until 8th May
Review by David Stephens
Described as a ‘thriller with hot topicality’, it was with a due sense of excitement and curiosity that we attended the premiere of Glacier Lake. Searching for a little background information prior to attending, a quick scan of the internet revealed that, as its name suggests, this new play (written by Andrew Cartmel and directed by Conrad Blakemore) is set in the remote, lake-side escape of Otto (Colin Hill) and his daughter, Sandy (Sadie Pepperrell).
Read more…Crypto Twist
The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown, adapted by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel
Simon Friend at Richmond Theatre until 7th May, then on tour until 12th November
Review by Melissa Syversen
It is hard to overstate the sheer size of the phenomenon that was The Da Vinci Code when the book was first released in 2003. It is one of the highest-selling books of the Twentieth Century and the only book to outsell it in 2003 was Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix. It … was … everywhere! Following its runaway success, its predecessor Angels and Demons quickly became a best seller as well, and since its release, three more books and three Hollywood adaptations, featuring Tom Hanks, quickly followed.
The interest in ‘symbologist’ and Harvard professor Robert Langon might not be as intense as it once was, but it never really went away either. The last book to feature professor Langdon, Origin, was released in 2017 and only last year was a series adaptation of The Lost Symbol released onto streaming services. (Peacock/NowTV). People love a mystery thriller, so it isn’t that surprising that someone finally decided to try and bring this story to the stage.
Read more…Snapshots and Perspectives
India Gate
by Howard Shepherdson, in collaboration with Tajinder Sindra
The Questors Theatre and Punjabi Theatre Academy at the Judi Dench Playhouse, Ealing until 7th May, then on UK and international tour.
Review by Mark Aspen
For well over four hundred years the history of India and Britain has been inextricably linked. This year marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of India achieving independence as a sovereign country, and it is apposite that two local production companies should collaborate to commemorate the occasion with the premiere of India Gate. Each partner has brought its own expertise and the play has a ringing authenticity, indeed much of the dialogue is in Punjabi.
During those four centuries India has become a unified country and now is powerful and influential in its own right. However, the relationship between Britain and India has not always gone smoothly. India Gate concentrates on two periods of history, the massacre at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in the Punjab in April 1919 and the events leading up to Indian Independence Day in August 1947. The story is told largely through the eyes of two people, Lady Emily Lutyens, recalcitrant wife of the famous architect Sir Edwin Lutyens; and Udham Singh, a Sikh zealot, who became an assassin.
Read more…All Things Considered
The Misfortune of the English
by Pamela Carter
Orange Tree Theatre Productions at the Orange Tree Theatre Richmond until 28th May UK première
Review by Andrew Lawston
Three schoolboys bound on to the Orange Tree’s stage, full of vigour and exuberance. One of them disdainfully removes a health and safety sign from the centre of the stage, and they proceed to tell the audience about their walking holiday in Germany. Twenty-seven children and one teacher, who is clearly idolised by his pupils.
Schoolboy banter is largely timeless, and school uniforms don’t tend to change much either, so it takes a while before the truth of the trip sinks in. The school trip is taking place in 1936, in Nazi Germany, just before Adolf Hitler’s birthday.
And as they narrate the start of their walk from Freiburg, and the first references are made to rain, storms, and sleet, it becomes clear that this is not the carefree stroll in the woods that the boys are anticipating.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 