UK Theatre Network

Noel Coward’s  Private Lives  PRESS NIGHT

at the Vaudeville Theatre on Tuesday 03 March 2010

Directed by Richard Eyre, starring Kim Cattrall (Amanda), and Matthew Macfadyen (Elyot). Produced by Duncan C Weldon & Sonia Friedman Productions.

Published by: Tremayne

"I think very few people are completely normal really, deep down in their private lives. It all depends on a combination of circumstances. If all the various cosmic thingummys fuse at the same moment, and the right spark is struck, there's no knowing what one mightn't do."
                                                                                                            Noel Coward

The play follows divorced couple, Elyot and Amanda, who, five years after their divorce, not only wind up marrying at precisely the same moment in time but also book the exact same hotel to spend their honeymoon in.  And if that were not coincidental enough, their suites are next to one another.  The contrived situation they find themselves in allows for that Coward structure of wit and deft comedic stagecraft to come out.

“There’s something behind all this”, comments Victor just before he discovers that his newly wed wife, Amanda, has spotted her ex-husband, Elyot, at the same resort as them.  The setting is the terrace of an elegant hotel on French Riviera. Although not written into the script, actor Matthew Macfadyen struggles to find his way through the net curtains and onto the balcony, which only adds to the tense atmosphere that has escalated between him and his new bride, Sybil.  With each couple’s ‘first disagreement’,Victor stiffly walks off to the bar, as does Sibyl. On their own, Elyot and Amanda,face one another. Amanda asks Elyot for a much needed cigarette.  Kim Cattrall (Amanda), fresh faced and elegant as ever, hitches up her Oscar-style cocktail dress to step over onto his side of the balcony.  Elyot and Amanda though angry, give the air of being profoundly happy with their new spouses, whilst secretly having already reached a level of boredom.

“You said that Norfolk was flat”, says Elyot who picks Amanda up on her language. She bites back with “Well, that’s no reflection on her (Sybil), unless she made it flatter!, clearly not giving her consent to the new marriage.  Music is playing conjuring up fond memories for them both and suggesting that this may have been “their special song”.  Amanda, reminiscences over times gone by but is restraining old feelings, as she speaks of what their love led them to: "selfishness, cruelty, hatred, possessiveness, petty jealousy." “Darling, I love you so” says Elyot. Amanda, talking right over the top of him, pretends not to have heard these words.  He continues “There isn’t a particle that I don’t know (of you)”, as she succumbs to his every want. They decide to run away together to Paris, regardless of the effect it will have on their reputations, freeing themselves from the ‘outside world’. But, it is only a matter of time before the uncontrollable arguments (‘private lives’) from their marriage past rear their ugly heads.The tour de force and impeccable comic timings of Matthew Macfadyen and Kim Cattrall make this a contagiously funny play to watch.

Private Lives  showing at the Vaudeville Theatre from 24 Feb 2010 to 01 May 2010.

Vicky Ireland's adaptation of The Hare and the Tortoise at the Queen's Theatre forms part of the Theatre for Young Minds programme which is run by the Theatre's Education and Outreach Department. The scheme will be taking the production to schools and children's venues around Essex and East London, aiming to introduce young children to live performance.

Members of Cut to the Chase welcomed the audience into the small village, children could sit in the middle to enjoy the action from all sides. I was shown to my seat by Earnest the Tortoise, the unlikely hero, whilst Gussy Spike, the melodic hedgehog sang us a song and the other characters played us in with a guitar and an accordion.  

The evil, fiddle toting Rhoda Skunk informs us, "I'm a business skunk," as she reveals her plans to turn the whole countryside into tarmac, leaving Earnest and his friends homeless in the process. Earnest and Gussy intend to fight Rhoda and Judge Fairweather decides that the matter will be resolved in a race around the town. Harold Bigfeet, the Hare who performs cartwheels and ballet style leaps, will represent the fast team and Earnest, the methodical and thoughtful tortoise, will race for the slow team.

Harold plays many tricks on the honest Ernest including switching road signs, but the audience (eventually) inform Earnest of this.  Suddenly the story takes a twist when aliens appear from another world and abduct the racers, leaving the fate of planet Earth in their hands.

Important issues were touched on, such as the need to slow down our fast paced lives and the danger of roads was nicely included during the Green Cross Code song. All sound effects and musical accompaniment were provided by the ever resourceful cast.

Never work with children and animals?  Well, the animals in this production were extremely well trained and the children were quiet as mice, sometimes too quiet, but judging by the looks of awe on their faces at the singing and dancing characters, they were highly entertained.

The Hare and Tortoise

The Queen’s Theatre Foyer, Billet Lane, Hornchurch RM11 1QT

Tube: Hornchurch

Tickets: £5

Box Office: 01708 443333

Website: www.queens-theatre.co.uk

George Orwell’s dystopian post-war novel Nineteen Eighty-Four imagines life in the future as a mixture of Stalinist Russia, Brave New World and The Blitz, with a splash Cold War paranoia thrown in for good measure. 

Our hero Winston Smith, a supposedly loyal drone in the Ministry of Truth, secretly dreams of smashing the despotic Party organisation which runs the state.  But the political and personal merge when Winston risks an illegal love affair with his colleague Julia despite the constant threat of discovery by ubiquitous two-way telescreens, a network of infant spies, and the terrifying Thought Police.

Matthew Dunster’s adaptation remains strictly faithful to the novel even down to the Brief Encounter-style dialogue, and has a traverse feel with a catwalk bisecting the auditorium.  This is a fast-paced production where scenes and characters come thick and fast, furniture and props literally fly in and out, and the cast members take a large number of roles between them.

Paul Wills’ design allows for effortless and rapid scene changes, and when the stage splits to reveal the high-tech torture chamber in the Ministry of Love the effect is truly impressive. 

Jonathan McGuinness as Winston (bearing a striking resemblance to Orwell himself) exudes bemusement and vulnerability as he goes on his perilous journey of self-discovery and rebellion, while Caroline Bartleet’s Julia has a confidence that comes from knowing exactly how to play the system purely to achieve her own ends and not from any underlying principals.

However the highlight of the evening is not some state-of-the-art special effect but an old-fashioned piece of theatrical rhetoric.  Paul Moriarty delivers an extract from banned book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, which I can assure you is as boring as it sounds, and invests it with such clarity and emotion that dry prose becomes inspiring oratory.  The spontaneous round of applause which Mr Moriarty earned on press night was well-deserved.

The grim and restrictive life of Oceania in 1984 may not appear an exact parallel with Britain in 2010, but since the Iraq conflict has resulted in democratic nations using detention without trial and state-sanctioned torture, and our own government has been caught trying to re-write the history of why the war ever happened, Orwell’s nightmare vision now seems more prescient than ever.

1984 is on until Saturday 27 March 2010

Prices: £8.50-£29.50

Evenings: Mon-Fri @ 7.30, Sat @ 8pm

Matinees: Wednesday @ 2.30, Saturday @ 4pm and Tuesday 9 March @ 2.30pm

Box Office: 0161 833 9833

www.royalexchange.co.uk

Girls seeking a testosterone – free night out are in for a treat at the King’s Theatre this week as “Hormonal Housewives” takes to the stage.

Very much in the mould of the incredibly successful “Vagina Monologues”, Hormonal Housewives offers the talented trio of Carol Smillie, Julie Coombe and Shonagh Price the opportunity to don pink, put down men, laugh at themselves, laugh at men, have a dance and enjoy the company of other women.  Predictably, when the target audience are women, the conversations, sketches and laughter revolve largely around men.  It was possibly the predictable nature of the topics and punch lines that proved to be a shortcoming in the production as some sections raised only chuckles rather than belly laughs.  Writers Julie Coombe and John MacIsaac redeemed themselves, however, with some excellent observational items and development of good physical humour, particularly in the courtroom and keep fit sketches.

The audience certainly enjoyed the entertainment on offer, although they proved reluctant to participate in fanning the cast with programmes in a children’s party inspired game.  Y-chromosomes were in short supply in the auditorium – it seemed that any men in the audience had lost a bet (or were VERY dedicated theatre goers) – but the audience proved that they could have a great time without the aid of their husbands and boyfriends.  This was largely due to the enthusiastic performances on stage where Julie Coombe, in particular, delivered the comedy with great gusto.

All in all, the show was a good target for a girlie night out.  The tour continues to Inverness, Dundee and Aberdeen.

Hormonal Housewives
Mon 1 – Sat 6 March
Mon – Thu eves 7.30pm
Fri & Sat 5.30pm and 8.30pm

Tickets: £9 - £24
Box Office 0844 871 7648 (Bkg fee)
www.ambassadortickets.com/glasgow (bkg fee)

Renowned touring theatre company Out of Joint are reunited with award-winning Irish writer Sebastian Barry for this new play about that nineteenth-century colossus of fiction Charles Dickens. 

The action takes place during the summer of 1857 when fellow celebrity writer Hans Christian Andersen makes an unexpected and interminable visit to Dickens’ new home in Kent.  The irritation caused in the household by the Dane’s eccentric and childlike behaviour is exacerbated by his poor grasp of English.  Their visitor however is delighted to find himself surrounded by a huge ménage of larger-than-life characters and is oblivious to increasing undercurrents of tension. 

This production is a dream meeting of fine writer, superlative cast and top notch production.  The dialogue has the satisfying style and literariness of a sketch by Boz himself, yet avoids seeming stilted or awkward because of the skilful delivery of great actors like David Rintoul and Niamh Cusack. 

Rintoul’s self-centred and self-dramatising Dickens is alive with passion and vitality, yet has a complete want of empathy for those around him (declaring that a “play is more real than real life”), casually wrecking his loved ones’ lives like a moustache-twirling villain in a melodrama. 

Niamh Cusack gains all our sympathy as his worn-out wife Catherine.  Only just recovering from a career of constant childbirth, she finds her role in the household usurped by her younger sister, her elder children being sent away, and her husband planning a separation.  Cusack matches Rintoul for ardour but is given additional opportunities for pathos, and seizes them.

Danny Sapani plays overgrown schoolboy Andersen as a blundering but well-meaning innocent all unconscious of the emotional atrocities surrounding him.  Although Barry’s intention was presumably to shine a new light on Dickens’ life by refracting it through the prism of Anderson’s eyes, somehow the famous Hans becomes overshadowed by bewitching little Irish housemaid Aggie, charmingly rendered by Lisa Kerr.  An Anglo-Hibernian theme creeps more and more into the narrative, underscored by those sentimental Thomas Moore songs so beloved of the Victorians.

Barry has written a compelling narrative and wonderfully rounded characters, and director Max Stafford-Clark brings them exuberantly to the stage with a variety of techniques ranging from puppetry to singing. 

Lucy Osborne’s set is cluttered with all the impedimenta of a traditional Victorian home, but works brilliantly with Tim Bray’s lighting to evoke scenes as diverse as a hilltop ramble, a moonlit fishing expedition, an impromptu cricket match and the Crystal Palace.

Great literary biographies invoke the spirit of an author’s work as well as creating a living portrait of their subject.  Sebastian Barry illuminates his subject, Dickens, by turning Dickens into a character of Dickensian proportions, and in the process becomes himself a writer of Dickensian dimensions.

Andersen’s English is on at Manchester Library Theatre until Saturday 6 March 2010 and then touring

Prices: £13.00-£18.00 (concessions available)

Eves: Mon-Thurs @ 7.30pm; Fri & Sat @ 8pm

Matinees: Thurs & Sat @ 3pm

Box Office: 0161 236 7110

www.librarytheatre.com

www.outofjoint.co.uk

Handful of Henna

The Customs House, South Shields

Based on real stories from Muslim women, Rani Moorthy’s Handful of Henna tells the story of the conflict and reconciliation between 13-year-old Nasreen and her mother, Saheeda. During a trip back to ‘the family village’ – thousands of miles away from her friends, unable to text them and stuck in the monsoon rain, surrounded by wagging tongues of relatives – Nasreen embarks on a journey that will lead to her developing a deeper understanding of the woman who is her mother.

Rochi Rampal gives a worthy performance, as Nasreen, and she is superbly supported by Bharti Patel (Saheeda), Nimmi Harasgama (Auntie Munah), and Sohm Kapila (Alia). Each of the women deftly deliver performances that are packed with poignancy and loaded with laughs.

Initially, the production starts out as a comedic clash of cultures. British-born Nasreen has only ever known the United Kingdom as home and feels no affinity with ‘the home village’. Saheeda experiences feelings of displacement in both the UK and in her birth country. Much weeping, wailing, yelling and screaming ensues between the mother, daughter and relatives, before a series of memories, which have haunted Saheeda for many years, are re-lived. The sharing of these long-repressed events signify the catalyst that enables Nasreen and Saheeda to build a new, more tolerant relationship.

One sparse set, designed by Rachana Jadhav, is used imaginatively and effectively to represent several different locations, whilst song and dance create an authentic and evocative air of Asian ethnicity.

The audience, which was largely made up of women, received the piece well and spontaneously clapped along to the uplifting closing number.

STEVE BURBRIDGE.

Tours to Darlington Arts Centre, Middlesbrough Theatre, and Queen’s Hall Arts Centre, Hexham.