THE WRONG SLEEP                 COCK TAVERN THEATRE

The Cock Tavern Theatre, Kilburn, under the artistic direction of Adam Speadbury –Maher continues with The Wrong Sleep, to offer some of London’s finest and most innovative fringe work.

Ruthsdale, a desolate town is rocked by an explosion that leaves many dead and injured. A priest offers the community God as comfort, despite beginning to doubt his own faith, and a deeply disturbed Muslim woman suffering from extreme insomnia, comes to him seeking answers. She is torn between Islam, Christianity and secularism, and as it becomes increasingly clear that she is willing to use violence to vent her frustrations, she also uses the place to confess. She is unashamed of her actions both past and present. Currently she seems to be talking to her dead lover wrapped in a sleeping bag that shares her bed, and also admits she is the enemy within, having caused the bomb blast. In the past she claims to have murdered her three children and stuffed them into flowerpots.

With this surrealistic play produced by visiting company Lumenis, it is never certain what is real, or what is created as part of a manic awake dreamscape devised by Janet’s long term sleep deprivation. Writer Mary Mazzilli, seems to be heavily influenced by Martin Crimp’s Attempts On Her Life, and the absurdist theatre of Ionesco, and this structurally fragmented script seems be an ‘open text’ which offers little resolution. Janet could be crazy as a loon, a victim of psychosis due to long term insomnia who is not sanely responsible for her actions, but she could just as easily be a monster who just enjoys killing. It is left to the audience to decide on this and other matters. As with much surreal theatre the story is polymorphous, and is sometimes hard to see where it is going, but it is held together by Adam Morley’s tight direction, and compelling performances by the actors.

Nadia Shash is highly watchable as Janet, who seems to respond instinctively to the dramatic twists and turns of her character, and David McCelland is excellent as the persecuted priest.

Mazzilli’s intense, poetic language flits between themes of sex and incest, imperialism and terrorism, compassion and retribution. It challenges and touches the audience, and despite striving to be a little too intellectually abstract at times, manages to engage from beginning to end. 

If you want to see theatre that breaks away from the bog-standard commercial norm this is the show to see.

FRY AND LEY – A Double Bill            COCK TAVERN THEATRE

Stephen Fry’s Latin, and Duncan Ley’s Last Drinks at the Cock Tavern Theatre, Kilburn, offers an interesting, if not a peculiar mix and match of theatre.

Latin was written by Fry whilst still at Cambridge and remains his only play to date. It won him an Edinburgh Fringe First, and led to his collaboration with Hugh Laurie. Set at Chatham Preparatory School for Boys, it is a witty spoof of the traditional boys boarding schools so often immortalised in fiction. Dominic Clarke is the new school master of Latin who has a cunning plan to marry the headmaster’s daughter in order to become head himself when her father dies. However his older colleague Herbert Brookshaw discovers that Clarke has been having an affair with Cartwright, one of his 13 year old pupils. In return for not revealing his secret he asks Clarke to beat him “twice a week with a coat hanger and a wet towel, not forgetting the peanut-butter!”

It’s all a bit naughty with double entendres all the way. Latin is a gem of subversive juvenilia, and it’s uniquely British humour with references to bottoms, sticky ends and firm hands manages to bring the crowd into hysterics. From the beginning the audience take on the role of the errant pupils as they are addressed face to face with a Joyce Grenfell approach. Punters are put in detention for lateness, and exercise books are hurled at them with derisive comments from the tutor. Fry never apologises for the illegal relationship in the play. Indeed he almost celebrates it. Perhaps it is because of it’s sensitive nature that it has been rarely performed. Not surprisingly when it premiered in Edinburgh, a local councillor attacked the play for promoting paedophilia.

Matthew Burton displays outstanding comic timing as Clarke, and Mark White is scarily convincing as the merit obsessed Brookshaw, who appears the epitome of the old- fashioned master who surreptitously delights in late night extra-cirriculars. The pair embrace this titillating romp with gusto and it’s all very watchable.

The same cannot be said of Last Drinks by Duncan Ley. This feeble attempt at a poor man’s Waiting For Godot, had me wanting to run for the bar long before last orders had been called. Despite probably the best intentions by Ley, the play at times frequently seemed more like a parody rather than a homage to Beckett. Nathan Godkin’s direction veers between confused states of attempted comedy through ‘League Of Gentlemen’ characterisations and desperate drama. As the theatres of Paris and Berlin show, absurdist theatre is a specialised art form that has to be done extremely well or it comes across as trite and very pretentious. Unfortunately this production is a victim of the latter. This is not a reflection on the very capable cast who cope admirably with direction that appears to be guessing at this particular type of theatre.

The night’s double-bill is a reminder of how the success and failure of any production depends on so many fragile factors. It felt like a very long night, and perhaps the productions should have been presented on alternative evenings rather than together.

OLIVER VALENTINE                          Box Office: 08444771000

A powerful new play from the unequivocally adventurous Second Skin Theatre and penned by resident writer William Whitehurst  brings the story of Rasputin –that mythical mad monk who helped destroy an empire – and his era to the stage in a stunning new production at the Rosemary Branch Theatre in Islington.

The opening moments of the play resound with the sounds –and even the smells –of Russian orthodoxy and as the lights go up we are confronted with a set that really wouldn’t look out of place in a national theatre. This kind of high-reaching and meticulous approach used by designer Mike Lees acts as an indicator of what’s to come on stage.

Andy McQuade brings to the role of Rasputin an astonishing depth of feeling and authenticity, capturing at once the man’s raw peasant vitality, his lust, his craftiness, and most of all the extraordinary pain at the core of his being. His principal antagonist, Felix Yussupov, is played to the hilt by one of the two Russian actors in the cast, Benny Maslov. Maslov brilliantly captures the sinister aspects of Yussupov but we also see this shell progressively shredded by the final dramatic scene –“In spite of everything, I still believe!” And we all know he’s not even fooling himself any longer.

The other Russian actor in the cast, Nika Khitrova, plays the bitterly wronged servant girl Katya, who transforms from humble servant to raunchy stripper to dark instrument of revenge with bone-chilling conviction. With just a few short scenes spread throughout the play she manages the near impossible task of presenting a monumental journey across many years with gut wrenching authenticity; her final moment is as moving as it is horrific.Alice Fernbank as the tormented Tsarina, caught between the demands of empire and a desperate desire to help her suffering son, offers such emotional nuance and range that we come to understand and deeply sympathize with her even as we watch her help unleash the chaos that will destroy her world.

The last link in this remarkably talented ensemble, Alastair Natkiel, creates in the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich a thoroughly sympathetic portrait of a vulnerable, wounded man who wants most of all to love and be loved. Natkiel understands how to maintain the outer façade while showing us how the inner man crumbles. Love may be all this character really wants, but it is in desperately short supply in Russia in the last years of empire and so he like everyone else is swept along by a tide that ultimately chokes off all but the worst aspects of human nature. And that, this play suggests with extraordinary power and conviction, is ultimately the tragedy of Russia itself at the dawn of the twentieth-century.

Do not miss.

http://secondskintheatre.com/

Sean Baker

PRODUCT MEDEA 4.0                           COCK TAVERN THEATRE

Medea.4.0 at the Cock Tavern Theatre, Kilburn is a modern marketing take on the classic Greek myth that engages from beginning to end.

Slovenian playwright Sasa Rakef gives the legend a 21^st Century angle by placing it in the corporate world, and spinning Medea’s tragedy for mass entertainment and maximum financial return. With an aggressiveness that would shame even Alan Sugar’s apprentices Medea. Inc uses ‘emotion design technology’ to sell their product.

The main character enters the stage ready to tell her story as an Eva Peron persona, but is stripped of her clothes, jewelry and dignity by Medea.Inc, in order to repackage her. The company conveniently rebrand her long held reputation as a monstrous child killer and makes her a victim who had no choice. We as the audience become investors of this new product, and are also able to buy Medea memorabilia at auction. Believing she has found her Max Clifford with Medea.Inc, she becomes complicit with her new image exploitation.

This brilliantly written and thought provoking play makes some spot-on and cynical observations of product advertising and media manipulation. Medea’s ancient tale could just as easily be replaced today by the late Jade Goody’s, as her demise has probably sold more media copy recently than any other. The message is sell the story, celebrity or brand however dubious the ethics.

The production is tightly directed by Maja Milatovic-Ovadia, and is supported by Verana Meneses imaginative choreography. James Palmer’s original score is highly effective and perfectly compliments the action on stage.

The cast work well as an ensemble, and there are notable performances by Victoria Grove and Konstantinos Kavakiotis as part of the selling team. Nikki Squire as Medea displays strong emotions, although sometimes there is a tendency to make her classic speeches extremely staccato and drawn out.

Product Medea.4.0 has all the best components of theatre. Along with the drama of hard sell and the pathos of it’s central character, there are also some very funny lines. This is probably the best hour of theatre you can invest in all week.

OLIVER VALENTINE                                          08444771000             www.cocktaverntheatre.com

PETER PAN                                                                          

KENSINGTON GARDENS

A new effects laden production of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, the original place where the story began, sounds like the perfect scenario for this much loved 1904 tale to return home. But on it’s journey it has lost it’s heart and soul in a messy plundering of J.M Barrie’s original concept.

Presented in a 1,100-seat circus–like arena by designer Bill Dudley, it is the world’s first fully 360-degree movie backdrop for live theatre. Computer generated images projected on to a cyclorama that runs right round the tent, provide stunning panoramas as Pan, Tinkerbell and the Darling children take flight. With superb flying skills they zoom over a dazzling three-dimensional CGI set of Edwardian London, and eventually arrive in an equally striking Neverland. Perfectly complimented by a soaring soundtrack by Benjamin Wallfisch, it feels as if we are flying with them.

Sue Buckmaster’s highly effective puppet creations add to the magic. Operated by War Horse-style puppeteer Mohsen Nouri, they include Nana the dog, the Neverbird and a wonderful skeletal crocodile.

There are adaptations to the original story by Tanya Ronder that work. In this day of high profile child disappearances, Mr.and Mrs Darling do not leave the children home alone, but are entertaining guests downstairs when their youngsters disappear. Tinkerbell is no longer just a ball of twinkling light but is a punky fairy with attitude. But there are other differences that are not so successful. When Tinkerbell swallows poison the audience are asked not to clap but told to whisper ‘I believe in fairies,’ to save her life. It is almost apologetic and seems to sum up the whole mood of the production. Indeed there seems to be an unwillingness to adhere to any commitment that might give the play emotional truth. Consequently it fails to move, resulting in a production that is ultimately shallow. The energy of the show seems to reflect this, and despite my attendance at only the second press night, it already felt tired.

Abbey Ford as Wendy is uninspiring and too old for the role, and there are little age differences (actual or performance wise), with the actors playing her brothers. Supporting actors in the Lost Boys and Pirates are far more convincing; and in the leads Jonathan Hyde is excellent as the wanna-be-loved Hook, Ciaran Kellgren dynamic as Pan and Itxasco Moreno riveting as naughty fairy Tinkerbell.

Of course I am reviewing this version of Peter Pan from an adult’s viewpoint. The children watching were not so critical, and although they only counted for only about ten percent of the audience they seemed to love it. Perhaps their voice should reflect any   future successes of the show much louder than that of a critic who has broken Pan’s rules and grown up.

STUDIES FOR A PORTRAIT                OVAL HOUSE THEATRE

Studies For A Portrait, at the Oval House Theatre follows the last few days of Julian Barker, a highly successful artist in the ranks of David Hockney, Francis Bacon and Andy Warhol.

The dying artist retreats to his East Hampton beach home with his much younger partner Chad. The latter is a hard-faced but efficient gold-digger who is determined to take sole control of Barker's estate once he is dead. However Barker’s previous long term boyfriend Marcus, appears on the scene broke and believing he has also a stake in the painter’s work. Along for the ride is also Justin, Chad’s cute twenty-three year old underwear model boyfriend who wants Chad’s full attention but is also willing to share his time with Barker as his new muse. As the battle for inheritance, heart and legacy begins amongst the ménage a trios, the best and worst of human nature is seen.

Daniel Reitz’s witty and often moving play is an observation of the complexities of relationships, power-games and self-preservation. He cleverly gives each character enough dimensions so it is not always clear cut what their motivations are. Is it simply the legacy of the artist? Or is it greed, control or even love?

The artist himself is a whirlwind of emotions as he faces death from pancreatic cancer. Co-dependent on Chad both practically and emotionally, he is perhaps the only person who sees the people around him for what they really are. Chad himself is not particularly a likeable character, having schemed his way into Barker’s life and chased away the threat of Marcus, he is determined to cling on to what he has gained. But again Reitz gives Chad unexpected edges, he may also genuinely love Barker, and not just for his money. Marcus the ex-lover who never quite got over his relationship with Barker, is a showcase of passive-aggressive behavior. Playing mainly victim yet more than able to turn to persecutor when needed. And Justin proves he is not just a fabulous body, he has brains and sensitivity, and is possibly more genuine than any of the men in the house.

The play takes a while to get going with the first half sometimes lacking energy and pace, but once it takes-off it hooks the audience as the charged atmosphere builds.

Adam Spreadbury-Maher's direction is generally focused, and Sophie Mosberger’s arty set a delight. The choice of sixties music is an ideal soundscape for the play. Martin Bendel is splendid as the acerbic Barker, Brodie Bass convincing as the ice queen Chad and David Price hits the mark when he finally lets go in a furious rant against his rival Chad. Michael Parr displays fine acting as Justin, and brings a much needed lift to scenes that sometimes dip.

Studies For A Portrait deals with important legal issues still facing gay couples in America. Barker realizes after his death anything left to Chad would be subject to inheritance tax, and creates a foundation to provide a tax-shelter for his lover when he is gone. It is essentially a gay play for today, but this is not just a play just for gay audiences.  It is a tale which has an emotional core that reflects the general human condition when dealing with issues of relationship and conflict. It is really a study of what makes people tick in times of emotional crises, and in this sense has a universal connection for all theatre goers. This is not to be missed.

OLIVER VALENTINE                                                  Box office: 020 7582 0080

GOODBYE: THE AFTER LIFE OF COOK AND MOORE             

Goodbye: The (After) Life of Cook and Moore, at The Leicester Square Theatre offers an hilarious review of the sometimes bumpy working relationship of iconic British comics Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

It's 2002 and Dudley Moore has died. Moore finds himself in a bar run by his ex-comedy partner Cook. The booze is free and never gives a hangover but all is not perfect. The comics are in Limbo, and they have an eternity to settle old scores. In death Cook and Moore face divine judgment for ‘Derek and Clive,’ and are forced to face their past, present and future with performers whose paths they crossed - not always favorably, before they are allowed to enter heaven or hell. With them in Limbo are a whole host of comics like Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock and Charles Hawtrey who despite successful careers were deeply unhappy on earth.

This darkly surreal comedy written by Clive Greenwood and Jonathan Hansler, shows an in-depth knowledge of their subjects, and is an inspired tribute to Cook and Moore which is as equally moving as it is humorous.

For someone like myself who knew nothing about Cook and Moore before entering the theatre it is quite a revelation to learn at how debased their language is. By today’s standards Cook and Moore’s work is not moderately obscene but for their time they were quite ground breaking. However apparently they were not the first.  In Limbo the comics are approached to co-write with John Wilmot, the dead second Earl of Rochester, (1647 -1680) whose play Sodom gave rise for prosecutions for obscenity.

The production is tightly directed by Michael Eriera, and scenes pass smoothly from one to other with ease. The clever use of sound by Mark Jefferis adds an extra dynamic to the production.

Jonathan Hansler is excellent as the bile spouting Cook and Adam Brampton-Smith endearing as Moore. But it is Clive Greenwood who steals the show with his brilliant impersonations. All are spot-on but my favorites were Frankie Howerd, Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey. He also brings a lift to scenes between Hansler and Brampton-Smith when there are occasional dips in pace and energy.

Following sellout performances, Goodbye: The (After) Life of Cook and Moore, - continues it's extended run at the Leicester Square Theatre Studio each Tuesday until June 16^th. Get a ticket while you can.

OLIVER VALENTINE                                                     Box Office: 0844 847 2475

Having opted to see a new show INVISIBLE STORMS with the premise of it being based around the topical theme of 'climate change', I must admit didn't fill me with too much exitement, but this surprising production at Kilburn's Cock Tavern is a real gem...

Devised and conceived by award winning director Jamie Harden & playwright Dan Muirden, the show is improvised on a nightly basis around the central scenes, thereby resulting in a fresh nightly production.
This is a team to look out for.

Essentially a revenge story, the production is a wonderful surprise, with tight, naturalistic acting from a strong cast. Short, sharp scenes, miminal set, effective yet simple lighting; even using the natural light from the onstage window, takes us into the world of Kat (Sarah-Louise Young) and her brother Richard (Richard Atwill) who, still reeling after the suicide of their beloved father, who campaigned for years to get a seawall built to protect the farm he loved and worked on for many years are forced to act yet again on his behalf. The pain of his death and their subsequent loss, as well as the reminder of his years of appeals and letters he sent to the local authority to hear his petition, add weight to their grief and loss.

Kat decides to avenge his death by pretending to be a Polish cleaner and apply to be the live- in cleaner at one of the leading members of the local authority who ignored her father's appeals, and who, ultimately she believes is responsible for his death. Her point being: she wants this man to open his heart and get him to a point where he is emotionally as vulnerable she & her brother are, then she can turn it on him & twist the knife in. How she does this is by creating a totally believable alter ego of the Polish cleaner, endearing herself to Conor (Benjamin Peters) and through his consequent attachment to herself and her two year old son, Misha, (who we never see) but who is obviously a loveable and adorable little boy, we see Conor wanting more and more to involve them both in his life and his emotional attachment to them both grow and develop.

In hindsight the scene with Kat telling Conor that to feel feelings is a good things and how opening himself to them is a right thing to do, reeks of so many tragedies with a protagonist leading another to their ultimate downfall & is a cruel twist of fate. How justified she is in doing what she does is another matter, of which Max, her boyfriend later on responds to with disdain; not even understanding the extent of her plan.

The reveal is well timed and heart felt and Peters responds with a horror and heartbrokeness that is moving. Kat leads him to this point and as she calmly and coldly reveals the truth, we see his hopes of them becoming 'a family' cruelly dashed.

At the centre of the play is a truly radiant performance by Sarah Louise Young. Here is a performer who has a very special quality that absorbs and mesmorises the audience. She is so completely in the moment in each scene and her clear emotional responses add great depth. Her portrayal of the alter ego as the Polish cleaner is totally believeable and adds intrigue and interest in how this story will run out.

Strong support from Richard Atwill as the brother, with a hearty, bear like quality, the edgy urban boyfriend Max (Hywel John) and Carrie Jones as sharp edged Mrs Barnham, who cannily feels Kat, the Polish cleaner is not all she's cracked up to be from the start, add up to a very special show.

Nicola Hollinshead

Listing Details

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Previews 5th, 6th & 7th May all tickets £10

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