Ripples of a Past
The Water’s Edge
by Theresa Rebeck
The Questors, at the Questors Studio, Ealing until 13th November
Review by Claire Alexander
‘Leaving you here was a mistake’, says Richard at one point in the second half of The Water’s Edge. Indeed it was.
Richard has unexpectedly turned up to find his ex-wife (well not ‘ex-wife’ as it turns out in a small twist of the plot) and his two, now adult, children none of whom he has seen in seventeen years. The children are now in their mid-twenties. His ‘wife’ is angry and lonely and it soon becomes clear living on the edge, not only of a lake, but also of insanity. The setting in contrast to these fractured family relationships is an idyllic but dilapidated and faded cottage on the shore. The director, Lucy Aley Parker, has chosen to set this production in Cumbria although it was probably written for back-country Massachusetts, America. But this seems to work and makes the play more impactful by being closer to home.
The cataclysmic event seventeen years ago was that the couple’s child Leah (we assume youngest, though we are never told) drowned in the lake one tragic day. Helen and Richard, the two parents have never been able to forgive each other, even talk to each other about this terrible tragedy, and Helen has always blamed Richard thinking that he had taken his eyes off his daughter while having an affair with a lady who had moved in to a nearby cottage. Seventeen years of grief and resentment are played out.
And to throw into this uncomfortable mix we should not overlook that Richard has brought his ‘latest’ girlfriend with him who is not much older than his daughter.
Read more…Pinking Shears Vendetta
Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare
Putney Theatre Company, at the Putney Arts Theatre until 13th November
Review by David Stephens
“Didst thou not fall out with a tailor?” asks Mercutio in Act III of Romeo and Juliet
Upon arrival at Putney Arts Theatre, a beautifully converted former chapel in SW15, the audience were warmly greeted by the friendly front-of-house staff and advised that we were free to choose our own seats within the auditorium. The stage was open (no curtain throughout) and one could therefore see immediately that Putney Theatre Company’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet was to be a modern interpretation and, at first glance, seemingly set in the premises of a seamstress or tailor. Stage right was a mannequin and clothes rail, both adorned with dark clothing, and a tall table, complete with large scissors and fabric, all washed in a red downlight. In stark contrast, stage left, was the perfect mirroring of this but with everything in much lighter colours and lit in green. As it begins to sink in, this clever design tells the audience that they are, in fact, looking at the premises of two separate businesses which, as we read in the programme notes, are the rival London fashion-houses of Montague and Capulet.
Read more…Real Wags
The Hound of the Baskervilles
by Steven Canny, John Nicholson, based on the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Original Theatre Company and Octagon Theatre Bolton, at Richmond Theatre until 6th November, then on tour until February 2022
Review by Mark Aspen
Having once visited the Reichenbach Falls on a car tour of Switzerland, I had seen for myself where Sherlock Holmes had fallen to his death. So, it was with dogged determination that I set out through the misty chill of a November evening to cross the moor to see The Hound of the Baskervilles. Well actually the moor was Richmond Green and another actually was the mist. There was plenty of it inside Richmond Theatre where the smoke machines worked overtime for Canny and Nicholson’s adaptation of Britain’s “best-loved novel”, Arthur Conan Doyle’s mystery of the fearsome demonic canine of Dartmoor.
First written for the zany theatre company Peepolykus, this is Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles slimmed down to a sleek greyhound of a show; and just as fast. The greyhound, though, doesn’t immediately bound out of the trap. Part of the slimming is having a cast of just three to play all of the characters of the novel, of which there are …lots. So before the race starts we must meet the players.
Read more…Moments of Delight
Nell Gwynn
by Jessica Swale
Q2 Players at the National Archives, Kew until 30th October
Review by Celia Bard
I admit to feeling of anticipation on entering the National Archive Centre for it was the first time of seeing Q2 Players in their theatre at Kew. I was also keen to see dramatist Jessica Swale’s treatment of the legendary Renaissance actress, Nell Gwynn. The play is set in the 1660’s, historically an interesting time in England. After almost two decades of revolution, war and theatrical suppression, monarchy and theatre have been restored. The play chronicles the meteoric rise of Nell Gwynn from a humble orange seller to the favourite mistress of King Charles II.
Read more…Making Waves
HMS Pinafore
by Sir Arthur Sullivan, libretto by W. S. Gilbert
English National Opera, at the London Coliseum until 11th December
Review by Heather Moulson
Yo-ho! “We sail the ocean blue” … and we had better have a fair wind behind us. This is the first time ENO has presented HMS Pinafore, so who wouldn’t rush to get there?!
There is an extraordinary air of warm trepidation in the Coli’, London’s most splendid theatre, about Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera, and we were not to be disappointed. Even before the curtain comes up, the marvellous John Savournin, a versatile British bass-baritone, addresses the audience in character as Captain Corcoran with interaction from Les Dennis as himself. This worked extremely well, and we all admired the latter for poking fun at himself.
After the electrifying overture conducted by Chris Hopkins, the stage was opened up to a stunning ship set, designed by Takis, a prolific stage and costume designer. Sharply detailed, we enjoyed the timeless We shall sail the ocean blue, before the plot really unwound with the bumboat woman, Little Buttercup, an earthy and enticing woman, coming on board. While she pedalled her wares, Buttercup hinted at a dark secret …
Read more…Spooky, Creepy and Zinging
Cinderella Meets the Monsters
by Loz Keal
Teddington Theatre Club, Hampton Hill Theatre, until 31st October
Review by Gill Martin
Hallowe’en hit Hampton Hill early as Cinderella and the Monsters marched into town.
Witches in pointy hats, scary kids in chains and a mummified girl with her face and head completely wrapped in bandages made this a fright night not to forget. And that was just the audience.
The auditorium of Hampton Hill Theatre was festooned with cobwebs, bats and spiders. Drifting dry ice and an open coffin set the scene at Dracula’s castle. I was in character with a glass of blood, masquerading as reasonable red wine, a black eye and five stitches in a head gash (the latter from a pavement fight rather than stage make-up).
Teddington Theatre Club presented a drama-starved audience – an almost full house on the second night – with a panto to remind us of what we’ve so missed: high energy fun, song, dance, dodgy gags, crazy characters, ridiculous costumes with enough sequins for a Strictly series.
Read more…Speak Well of Me
The Dresser
by Ronald Harwood
Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Everyman Theatre at Richmond Theatre until 30th October, then tour continues until February 2022
Review by Eleanor Lewis
The relationship between actors and crew in a theatrical production used to be (and probably still is in some companies) delicate, there was an Upstairs Downstairs vibe to it. Actors created a performance and soaked up the applause, but it couldn’t happen without set builders, props, lighting, sound, dressers, and numerous others none of whom were ever visible. Like servants they were ‘below stairs’.
Ronald Harwood was dresser to the famous actor-manager Sir Donald Wolfit for some years after WWII, at a time when social dynamics were shifting on a grand scale. Men and women who had fought for their country came home wanting a life of their own rather than one ‘in service’ to another family.
Similar changes were taking place in the world of touring theatre. Donald Wolfit, who took the leading role in all the Shakespeare works his company played around Britain in the 50s, also managed the company. Thus he wielded enormous power, his actors and crew totally dependent on him, but he was drained emotionally and physically because of it. The more democratic theatre companies, like Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop, were just beginning to appear and Wolfit’s era was coming to an end.
Read more…Wagner Without the Va-Va-Vroom
Der Fliegende Holländer
by Richard Wagner
Rose Opera at the Normansfield Theatre, Teddington until 24th October
Review by Suzanne Frost
Wagner by a fringe opera company? Ambitious would be the first word to come to mind. Wagner is known for a lot of “wumms”, as we would say in Germany, which might be broadly translated into va-va-vroom. It has to be loud. Rich. Epic. As much as he was a romantic – and there is inevitably a moment in every Wagner opera of such sweeping aching beauty it could make you cry – it won’t be a proper Wagnerian experience without those moments of such intense dramatic sound, it takes over your whole body and vibrates in your belly and just feels … epic.
So you wonder, once you enter the tiny bijoux Normansfield Theatre in Teddington, how? How they are going to produce The Flying Dutchman, a work that apart from a whole lot of va-va-vroom also demands a lot of lights, mood and theatricality. Wagner, who, if he had had the means back then, would have probably worked in movies rather than the theatre, famously dreamed up the most outrageous special effects in his stage directions that directors now have to find feasible solutions for. Shakespeare’s famous “exit pursuit by bear” has nothing on Wagner, who basically envisioned spectacles of such magnitude even the likes of Steven Spielberg or Roland Emmerich would need a lot of CGI for.
Read more…Foul Melancholy Ennobled
The Duchess of Malfi
by John Webster
Richmond Shakespeare Society at the Mary Wallace Theatre until 30th October
Review by Celia Bard
Prior to attending this production of The Duchess of Malfi, I learnt that the audience was to be transported to the 21st century and that we were about to watch the machinations of a powerful celebrity family. The revised performing version would be shorter in length and the cast would be reduced from fifteen to seven with some doubling up. I must admit to feeling a level of curiosity as to how Webster’s Jacobean revenge drama would play out. With this loss of text I wonder whether I would I recognise the characters? Would the Duchess’ brother, the Cardinal be as corrosive a force? Would that Iago-like character, Bosola, be as chameleon a figure as represented in the text, and how would Webster’s text come across to a 21st century audience? What would the set look like and of course costumes? Some two hours and forty minutes later, I was able to answer many of these questions.
Read more…Dogged Horror
Birdwatching
by Miranda Barrett
Anarchy Division at The Space Theatre, Isle of Dogs, London until 24th October
Part of the London Horror Festival
Review by Heather Moulson
Halloween is truly in sight, getting us just in the right mood for the London Horror Festival.
The Space, with its gothic splendour in the heart of Millwall, down on the Isle of Dogs is an ideal setting. Formerly St Paul’s Church, its high ceilings, and grand windows, surrounded by a charming cobbled courtyard is fitting for this unique festival, one that I previously enjoyed in 2019 at the Pleasance Theatre in Islington; another atmospheric and inspiring theatre.
I wanted to be receptive and supportive, as I think the horror genre is so much more difficult to convey onstage as opposed to film. The tension and build-up is given such limited freedom, which rests heavily on the player’s shoulders. However, integrity and strong writing make up for this.
Set in the depth of winter and of isolation, three people set out to make a horror film.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 