Matt Devitt’s production of Ladies Down Under revisits Amanda Whittington’s characters from Ladies Day, a play about four Northern lasses from a fish packing factory in Hull who win half a million pounds on an accumulator at Ascot.  The ladies are brought back together again as they embark on a soul searching trip to Australia with their winnings. The characters of Pearl, Jan, Linda and Shelley are easily bought into, as long as you buy the full set.  Together they are a dynamic, but as individual characters they would possibly fade.  The play relies heavily on stereotypes, particularly in its male characters, which gives it its humour.  Simon Jessop and Oliver Seymour-Marsh give a humorous presentation as camp flight attendants and go on to play an array of recognisable characters. Seymour-Marsh plays an enthusiastic surfer and a spiritual bushman traveller.  Jessop is an ageing, stoned British traveller and Joe, the boyfriend of Jan from the factory who is disillusioned with his trip of a lifetime to Australia which he began the year before.  In a colourful climax, two fantastically gregarious drag queens dominate the stage.  Jessop, slightly unsure on his heels performs beautifully executed poses as Koala Bare and Seymour-Marsh is just as at home in his thigh high boots performing gay anthems as Bondi Bitch as he is in his bush man boots giving lessons in life to all.

 Amanda Whittington has concentrated on taking the characters to a new place in this sequel. Thrown together in unfamiliar surroundings their personalities clash and truths are revealed, the ladies are forced to look deeper at themselves and into their lives back home.  One by one they are confronted with their faults and fears and each one follows an arc of discovery. Diana Croft sustains the negativity of the babbling, unconfident Jan, who complains constantly about her bowel problems and her lack of faith in anything, including her relationship with Joe.  Helen Watson is warm and compelling in her role as Pearl who, hiding a secret, looks for adventure and new experiences however small. Lucy Thackeray brings freshness to the character of Linda, a timid do-gooder who is happier giving her money to others rather than spending it on herself. Sarah Scowen begins slightly caricature as Shelley, overdressed in garish designer wear, desperate for fame and recognition, but softens as she opens up about her past, even if it is to a complete stranger in the bush.  The plot is laden with coincidences and flukes, but ultimately this is the play’s charm, making it easy to watch and accessible. All that is asked of the audience is to suspend their disbelief, sit back, relax and enjoy.

Matt Devitt  has chosen a minimalistic set designed by Claire Lyth, which enhances the emphasis of character rather than place. Quick scene changes take place smoothly in darkness with pictures of Surfers Paradise and Uluru projected onto the back wall to create a sense of location and an effective use of lighting creates atmosphere.   

Each character undergoes a transformation.  The overriding question of, can money make you happy, looms over the whole play but the conclusion that it gives is slightly confused.   It certainly seems to be an aiding factor in all their cases but I had the feeling that that wasn’t the aim.  The characters had to go on a trip which would give them the space to assess their lives and the outback was a perfect setting, but these characters would never have done this without their winnings. Ultimately this was a fun production with the underlying significance being friendship and humanity, which takes you from laughter to tears and back again... and again.

CAST

Jan Diana Croft
Joe Simon Jessop
Shelley Sarah Scowen
Tom Oliver Seymour-Marsh
Linda  Lucy Thackeray
Pearl Helen Watson

Director Matt Devitt
Designer Claire Lyth

 

DATES, TIMES AND PRICES
Fri 27 Aug | 8pm | Preview £14
Sat 28 Aug | 8pm | Preview £20 | £16.50 conc
Tue 31 Aug | 7.30pm | £20 | £16.50 conc
Mon - Thurs Perfs | 8pm | £20 | £16.50 conc
(7.30pm on Tue 31 Aug)
(no performance on Mon 30 Aug)
Fri - Sat Perfs | 8pm | £23
Matinees | Sat 4 Sep | Thurs 9 Sep | 2.30pm £14

The Will is billled as a ' 2-man comedy play with a touch of music.' This is an understatement as this new piece by David Doyle  is an hour choc full of cabaret and comedy, farce and  and pop culture pastiche.

Father Howard (Kevin Potton) and Doctor Donald (David Doyle) meet up to read  at midnight the will of an old colleague.

We are taken on a ride through each characters neuroses, from espionage secrets in Serbia to disillusionment with their present careers, all sprinkled with song and dance routines.

  The Will has laugh out loud moments, Doyle and Potton have good voices and nice comic timing. With first night nerves overcome some some gags could do with speeding up to reduce their repetitiveness. The nods to popular sayings and past comedy greats are a nice touch.

Doyle's text is certainly linguistically challenging for the two actors and they pull it off with aplomb.


The Camden fringe
Etcetera Theatre
August 21 to 23 1030pm

We both wanted men but we got institutions.

 

Robert David MacDonald’s play describes a fictional meeting of Eva Braun and Clara Petaccci, the mistresses of Hitler and Mussolini.  During the course of the play the two women assume a range of male roles such as their dictator lovers, a fanatical Hitler Youth, and misogynists. As themselves they demonstrate how the continuance of an oppressive system is dependent upon the compliance of its victims.

 

The venue is an imposing eighteenth-century mansion at 32 Portland Place. Set in the diplomatic heart of central London, it provides the ideal backdrop for this surreal and disturbing production. Most of the action takes place in the living room but there are a few scenes on the stairs and in the hallway. The chorus consisting of three talented singers sees to it that every member of the audience has a good view of the actors.

 

When we follow the Soldier, dressed in a fascist uniform, into the living room we find Eva Braun and Clara Petacci in their underwear embracing and exchanging hot kisses. Dresses and underwear is draped over lamps and statues. They are drinking champagne and having a good time. Very soon their attention is directed towards the young man. Singing the all-time favourite Nazi hit „Die Fahne hoch“ they begin undressing the man, putting a dress on him while Braun and Petacci are now wearing trousers. The soldier has changed into the woman, the victim, while the mistresses act as chauvinist males at their worst. After assuming a variety of male roles Braun and Petacci lament their fate as mistresses of institutions. Although they have certain privileges they are never allowed to take their rightful place next to their men. Instead they are forced to live rather restricted lives. Like gangsters their dictator-lovers see women either as mothers or whores, and whores need to be kept tugged away, out of sight.  

 

The production is an unsentimental examination of the cold eroticism of power, the oppression of the weak by their darker selves and the sordid politcs of oppression. The charismatic Laura Pradelska gives a stunning performance as Eva Braun, Elisa Terren is a captivating Clara Petacci and Martin Behrman is impressive and touching as the Soldier.

 

aya theatre company was formed by a collective of emerging theatre artists. Their next project is Burmese Days, adapted from George Orwell’s first novel.  

   

Venue: 32 Portland Place W1B 1QE

Weds-Sat only, 7.30pm (Doors 6.45pm)until 4th September 2010  

 

THIS IS A AN INVITE-ONLY FREE PERFORMANCE

Please go to the following webpage to reserve a ticket:

http://www.ayatheatre.com/iWeb/aya/SummitConference.html

 

The latest production of Into The Woods at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, offers an enchanting night of magical, musical story telling that is not to be missed.

Written in 1987 by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, this complex musical uses classic fairytales such as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk, to tell a morality tale of self-discovery. From the first chords the audience are led on an emotional journey as the characters realise a collective responsibility for the results of their decisions, wishes, greed and desires. In the first half everyone's wish comes true, and in second act they have to deal with the consequences. The central theme deals with the loss of innocence, and the narrative is given a highly effective new dimension by being told by a lonely child who has run away into the woods, and uses his imagination to create a fantasy world.

The stage is naturally surrounded by the park’s trees, and Soutra Gilmour’s  impressive climbing frame set that peaks with a nest for Rapunzel’s tower, contributes to the visual spell. This is further invoked when darkness falls and Jon Clark’s lighting design adds to the treat.

Timothy Sheader’s direction is endlessly creative, and perfectly complimented by Liam Steel’s movement work. Beverly Rudd is delightfully comic as Red Riding Hood, and Michael Xavier and Simon Thomas work in perfect synchronicity as the princes. Jenna Russell shows great emotional range as the Baker’s wife, and Alice Fearn is memorable as Rapunzel. 

Into The Woods is one of Sondheim’s masterpieces, and this production has managed to create a more than satisfying revival. It is a wonderful 80^th birthday gift for the composer, and is a superb finale to the season at Regent’s Open Air theatre.

OLIVER VALENTINE  

                         

Into The Woods runs until 11^th September   www.openairtheatre.com 

           

 

Does she still drink? - She stopped when I began.

Washed up actor Frank Elgin is asked to audition for a leading role in a Broadway play. Bernie Dodd, the director, remembers Elgin in his prime and now intends to cast him in his new production – overriding the objections of the producer who is sceptical at best. To him, Frank is an uncalculable risk – an alcoholic and a has-been. Under the pressure of reviving his career, Frank seeks solace in alcohol, thus forcing his wife Georgie to try and keep him focused on his career. Dodd, believing that Georgie is the reason for Elgin’s career decline, strikes up a stormy relationship with the actor’s wife.

The Country Girl, the most famous of Clifford Odets’ late plays, is considered an authentic „backstage piece“ of the American theatre. The filmed version with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly has become a classic. This is Odets’s witty dialogue at its best; „Stop minimizing what I say by agreeing with it!“ Unfortunately, this production does not do the play justice. Directed by Rufus Norris, Martin Shaw paints Frank Elgin with rather broad strokes. There is little room for subtlety. Jenny Seagrove plays Frank’s downtrodden wife Georgie who sees herself as a liasion officer between Frank and Bernie. Almost catatonic in her resignation she becomes alive in the second half of the play. There is a very moving scene with the sympathetic playwright Paul Unger (Luke Shaw) and a young actress who plays Frank’s grand-daughter (Nancy Stoddard). Peter Harding is excellent as Larry, the stage manager, who truly cares about his actors.

The show still runs until 14 August 2010 at the Richmond Theatre.

Richmond Theatre,The Green, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1QJ
http://www.ambassadortickets.com/1742/659/Richmond/Richmond-Theatre/The-Country-Girl

The latest work at Opera Holland Park  Francesca da Rimini,  is a challenging piece. Like Debussy’s  Pelleas and Melisande  it seems there are no real memorable duets that linger with Riccardo Zandonai’s work. Also like the aforementioned opera, they share a somewhat similar storyline where the heroine falls in love with the brother  of her husband and both come to tragic ends. It’s a familiar sense of déjà vu.

 

The opera is based on the life of the daughter of Guido da Polenta, lord of Ravenna who in appeasement of peace between the Malatesta family affirms the agreement by marrying his daughter Francesca (Cheryl Barker ) to the Malatestan heir,  Giovanni (Jeffrey Black) .

Giovanni being deformed has a proxy stand in his place -his handsome brother, Paolo(Julian Gavin ) . Naturally Paolo and Francesca fall in love but she realises the morning after the wedding day she has been duped. During the war with a neighbouring family,  Francesca and Paolo fall in love, helped along by a passion for reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere.

It is only when the youngest brother Malaetestino(Jeffrey Lloyd Roberts)  tells Giovanni of their affair, that he finds them and kills them both.

 It’s difficult to see chemistry and contrast between the cast. While Barker’s voice quality is lovely, her  physicality does not suggest she is the  naïve pawn. Gavin’s Paolo is sung with a depth of feeling but again it’s an unlikely pair.  Lloyd Roberts as Malaetestino is in fine voice but as he is  the most strapping of the three brothers it’s hard to see him as the ‘small perverted child’ Francesca calls him when he makes his own advances to her.  

 

 

The staging never quite creates the sense of their world. Two battlements are constantly moving to show a fortress under attack and Francesca’s boudoir within. There are significant gaps of time between scene changes  that somehow seem just not right.
There are some great touches such as lighted torches held aloft moving back and forth to suggest a siege and a rain of flaming arrows. The depth of the female chorus singing was lovely, but this seems not enough. After all the effort to get to the tragic end,  Giovanni despatches  Paolo and Francesca so quickly that one feels somehow cheated.

 

Phillip Thomas leads the  City of London Sinfonia for Francesca da Rimini till August 13^th

 

July 30, August 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13

Though Verdi’s La Forza has many plot twists that seem far too coincidental, the Opera Holland Park current production is certainly an example of minimal staging with maximum impact.

 

Daughter of Seville Leonora (Gweneth Anne Jeffers) attempts to elope with Inca blood prince Don Alvaro (Peter Auty )  but in the midst of their escape is startled by her father who is accidental killed by Alavaro. Leonora is condemned to flee, later becoming separated from Alvaro.  

 

Action goes to Seville at war – the chorus were in fine voice and acted as a living set , using  Alison Chitty’s   designs of black and red to evoke wartime and hunger. 

 

Leonora’s  brother Don Carlo (Mark Stone ) embarks on a sojourn of vengeance to find the lovers, who  eventually by chance are both seeking refuge at a monastery headed by   Padre Guardiano (Mikhail Svetlov).

 

Though a first ever production for OHP, audiences would recognize the overture for this work, regularly played by classical music radio and featured in the film Jean de Florette.

 

The performance of the evening and indeed for me the season so far  was from  Gweneth Anne Jeffers.  Her Leonora is exquisite, her voice caresses notes one by one – she is a joy to listen to. Even the most hard hearted critic could not fail to appreciate what a talented performer Jeffers is.

 

 With an animated  Stuart Stratford  leading  the City of London Sinfonia, this piece is  a memorable night at the opera.

July 27, 29, 31, August 4, 6, 10, 12, 14

Howard Brenton’s new play at The Globe adds to the fashionable cult of Anne Boleyn, by re-painting her not as a scheming power seeking witch, but as a forward thinking idealist and reformer, responsible for the revolutionary ideas that changed English religion.
Early on it is clear that Brenton has a loose hold on history with imagined scenes of Anne meeting bible translator William Tyndale. In his play her influence very much still lives on, and it is implied that her religious legacy not only gave us Protestantism and the King James Bible (although her ‘heretical’ Tyndale Bible was essentially the same book), but was also a possible historical contributor to the Civil War years later.
The story packs in a lot. In the first part young Henry VIII is madly in love with Anne, and desperately trying to find a way to get rid of his sonless wife Katherine of Aragon. In Act II the drama rather cleverly plays with time and Anne is not only seen as a living queen, but the also as a ghost in James Ist reign. The King becomes a dominant character as he negotiates with religious factions who are threatening to pull the country apart, and Anne’s downfall is almost upstaged by this new storyline.
Anne played by Miranda Raison, is sexy, assertive and shrewd. Rather than being the monster often portrayed by history, she is the audience’s friend.  She play’s with them, teases and takes them into her confidence, and even shows her head as a joke. She announces the interval with a naughty wink, saying unashamedly that it’s time for her and Henry to get down to sex after holding off for seven years. The language is modern and direct. Henry admits to having ‘a raging hard-on,’ and Anne wastes no time is describing Queen Katherine as “such a cow.”
The casting is spot-on. Raison shines in the role of Anne, and is well matched with Anthony Howell who plays a dynamic, virile Henry VIII. James Garnon bring’s almost a Rocky Horror Show quality to the role of King James as the camp, twitching, larger than life ruler, and Amanda Lawrence is also notable as Lady Rochford.
The production is kept at a pace by John Dove’s fine direction, and is complimented by William Lyons's delightful score.
Anne Boleyn plays at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre until August 21, 2010.

OLIVER VALENTINE

SUBS                                                    COCK TAVERN THEATRE, KILBURN

You don’t need to be a sub-editor to enjoy Subs, the latest offering from the Cock Tavern Theatre, Kilburn.
Set in the gloomy, generic office of Gentlemen Prefer…, 3 subs face repetitive days of spell checking, headline writing and colleague in-fighting..
Chief sub Derek, is hoping to be promoted and get rid of his moaning Minnie of a co-worker Finch, by sacking him. The ambitious office junior James, brown-noses Derek while ruthlessly having his own agenda to get ahead. Finch has fallen into addictive whinging and internet porn to get through the day, and given up all hope of ever moving on. However the unthinkable happens and Anna a young woman joins the team, signalling that the time has come for things to change both career wise and personally for the subs.
R.J.Purdey’s observant and often hilarious script is rife with catty and condescending remarks, and shows that men can be the biggest bitches in the office if provoked. The funniest lines are given to the semi-tragic and acerbic Finch, and are delivered with immaculate timing by the superbly cast Michael Cusick. Euan Macnaughton is convincing as Derek, the older man who has missed the career boat, and Naomi Waring is very likable as Anna. The play is tightly directed by Hamish Macdougall.
For fine acting, thought provoking drama and a hearty laugh, Subs is the play to see right now.

OLIVER VALENTINE  
                                                                                        Subs plays until 12th August
                                                                                                                 08444771000                                     

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players,

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages.

Simon Callow who has recently brought us his successful and carefullly researched one-man show The Mystery of Charles Dickens and the excellent Dr Marigold & Mr Chops is now exploring what it was like to be Shakespeare. Written by Shakespeare scholar and biographer Jonathan Bate, the play brings to life both the man and the world he lived in.

Using the Seven Ages of Man speech as a framework the play skillfully interweaves passages from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets with relevant facts about life in Elizabethan times. Simon Callow fills the stage with Shakespeare’s real and imagined world quickly switching from his role as a narrator to various Shakespearean characters. Directed by the talented Tom Cairns the production recounts Shakespeare’s life from his birth and his miraculous survival of the bubonic plague when he was only two months old to his grammar school education that must have been the best preparation a future playwright could hope for, his beginnings as a writer in a „play factory“, his first big success with Henry VI, the highlights of his career and finally his retirement after his last play Thomas More – a collaborative effort that was never performed during Shakespeare’s lifetime.  We encounter Christopher Marlowe, the Earl of Southampton, De Montaigne, Richard Burbage, Will Kemp and many others and learn about the brutal reality of life in Elizabethan England when people lived in a constant state of war and experienced an average of 800 hangings per year.

This round production impresses with its plethora of information whilst being highy entertaining, funny, touching, tragic, thoughtful, and poetic. Simon Callow’s brilliant celebration of Shakespeare – The Man from Stratford should not be missed.

The show runs until 31 July 2010 at the Richmond Theatre and will then proceed directly to the Assembly Halls in Edinburgh.

Richmond Theatre,The Green, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1QJ
http://www.ambassadortickets.com/1754/659/Richmond/Richmond-Theatre/Shakespeare