Established in 2016 and putting on productions in both Spanish and English, this smart studio space in Southwark is an exciting testament to London’s cosmopolitan cultural life. Spanish-speaking friends must be told about it, while the venture allows those less lucky in languages, such as myself, the chance to see a different repertoire, including this play by Guillem Clua: a solid piece, full of smart argument and emotional drama, that escalates into a real tear-jerker.
The theatre’s website doesn’t spoil the play’s twists, so neither should I: gradually revealing the tragedy that links a singing teacher and her new pupil is done well. Their connection arises from an act of terrorism and the specifics are detailed admirably. There should be less shorthand in discussions around events this complex. Bravo to Clua for putting most commentators of such atrocities to shame. The play also works as a more general examination of grief, pinpointing how mourning takes time. With both characters stuck at the stage of being angry, there’s only a suggestion they will move beyond this. It’s a harsh position but a realistic one.
The play’s forensic nuances place demands on its cast that are not entirely fulfilled, but the standard of acting, for the English-speaking version I attended, is high. One notable failure: neither performer has command of the humour (said to be the hardest thing to translate) in the piece – Clua includes mischievous moments that seem wilfully ignored, including a line about a kiwi fruit I am sure is supposed to get a laugh.
When it comes to the play’s considerable emotional impact, both actors are spot on. Jeryl Burgess gives a performance full of restraint – her character is not a woman who cries easily so, when tears come, it is especially moving. David Luque shows his role’s complexity by making sure we sympathise with but don’t entirely like him: his venom and lashing out are cruel, if believable. Final credit goes to director Paula Paz, who marshals these quality performances and shows great sympathy toward the script. There are no attempts to abbreviate the arguments, or introduce histrionics – both examples of discipline that serve this credible play well.
Here’s a little idea: in times of cultural crisis, heroes are needed, and for Liberals they don’t come bigger than EM Forster. In Matthew Lopez’s play, about America but receiving its premiere in London, the Edwardian novelist appears on stage – portrayed with extraordinary skill by Paul Hilton – mentoring a group of young gay New Yorkers as they tell their stories. The clash of cultures is fun, adding a light touch to serious content that ranges far and wide. Played over two parts, with a marathon running time of nearly seven hours, perhaps the highest praise is that not a moment is wasted or uninteresting.
The Forster classic that the play is so very consciously in dialogue with is the 1910 Howards End. Lopez has characters narrating, shaping, scripting and performing events, a method that comes close to a combination of novel and play that is formally innovative and highly engaging. Action follows the book closely as sensitive artistic types (the Schlegels for Forster) come into contact with the world of commerce. Negotiating an update is full of wit. And thought provoking, too – when parallels become too forced, characters fight against what comes next. A reservation: it’s essential to know the book well to appreciate all this. The rewards include the novel’s titular abode transformed into an informal AIDS hostel – a stroke of imaginative genius that proves particularly moving.
The house is the base from which Lopez explores the inheritance in his title: the legacy of the AIDS epidemic and its relation to the gay community. History is alive and hauntingly literal for Lopez, which results in a truly stunning ending for Part One. Arguments are laid with ferocious intelligence and passion. A sense of fear about the current political climate results in inspirational calls to action – this is a play with a mission. It’s clear director Stephen Daldry is on board, treating the text with reverence: every joke is played for all its worth, each rallying speech given space. Daldry’s staging, imbuing more grandeur than the text requests, emphasises what an event the show is. Beautiful, too, bathed in a golden light by Jon Clark. Similarly, the conviction of the performances is humbling, as a strong ensemble creates a chorus of supportive friends, loved ones and artists.
Kyle Soller, Paul Hilton and John Benjamin Hickey
One Eric Glass is the emotional heart of the piece (the lead Schlegel, if you will) and a hugely appealing creation that makes for a career-defining role for Kyle Soller, who is riveting throughout. Lopez retains the name of Henry Wilcox, transforming him into a billionaire property developer, giving the character great weight, and the performance from John Benjamin Hickey does this justice. Oh, and Vanessa Redgrave has a part, too – an extended version of the housekeeper Mrs Avery. Of course, it’s exciting to see her on stage (and a blissful nod to the Merchant Ivory film) but, no matter how small the role, it’s testament to the production that even Redgrave can’t overwhelm the play.
Lopez gets tricksy when it comes to the role of Forster’s clerk Leonard Bast. Some elements of his role are shared out, his famous umbrella threw me, and taking on some of his aspirational characteristic is Toby Darling, rendered vividly by Andrew Burnap. Playing a self-destructive writer, trying hard to win an award as the ultimate narcissist, there are plenty of laughs. Toby’s own inheritance, an abusive childhood, lingers over the play and, while Burnap handles the scenes well, they feel like a loose end. Meanwhile, the parts of Leo and his doppleganger – a wealthy actor called Adam – are both performed by Samuel H Levine. All actors play more than one role but the flipping between parts for Levine shouts his talents deafeningly.
Kyle Soller, Samuel H Levine and Andrew Burnap
In the novel, Leonard is pivotal to deflating authorial grandiosity. The character retains his dignity and questions the role of art. Abandoning this, Lopez takes on a pious tone. Leo’s life as a member of an underclass – a prostitute who gets involved with drugs – brings us the play’s darkest moments, coming close to misery porn. While Leo’s end is ultimately happier than Leonard’s, it feels unrealistic. And it gives rise to surprisingly crass points on inequality. An earnestness pervades the play – it’s a fault some find in Forster, too – that makes it all a touch High Table. The humour that seeks to compensate doesn’t have Forster’s bite or finesse. The dialogue, rooted in contemporary privilege, might sound as foreign to English ears as anything Edwardian – which is interesting in itself – but some scenes, surely destined for auditions, feel like contrived set pieces.
While the conversation with Forster’s novel is fascinating, a final assessment of Lopez’s play rests on what he does with his inspiration. Current political concerns, social injustices and Trump trauma are all thrown in, sometimes messily. The legacy of AIDS, so sensitively handled, engulfs the play. Connections to Tony Kushner’s Angels in America are clear, but that’s another blog! An epilogue, which doesn’t leave a dry eye in the house, is when we arrive at a fantasia and when the play becomes its most aspirational. Concerning itself with the widest of societal connections through the personal, struggling so hard to connect the prose and the poetry – in the here and now – is the biggest lesson learnt.
Damsel Productions is an exciting young company on to a winner with Izzy Tennyson’s new play. Rolling up its sleeves and getting… well, very dirty, this show answers the palpable need for diversity and work from women on stage. So the first thing to say about Grotty is that you should go!
Tennyson guides us through a world seldom depicted – the lesbian sub-culture of East London – with fierce intelligence, wicked humour and a throbbing heart. The play is funny, but this isn’t a fun trip. Taking to the stage as “sad little lesbo” Rigby, Tennyson leads us on a revelatory journey about youth today. There’s a litany of millennial woes providing five-star laughs – from Facebook to flats – arguably more than enough for any coming-of-age story. But the major concern isn’t sexuality – it’s mental health. The “chronically disheartened” Rigby dangerously self-medicates, and the play is frank and frightening in its personal telling of this increasingly important issue.
Tennyson’s writing is invigorating, showing a yen for the macabre and a strong sense of the theatrical that some might feel needs tempering. There’s a lack of polish, which it’s tempting to suggest is a perverse, stubborn idea about being radical. But the raw ideas are profuse, exciting and profound. The script overreaches, but director Hannah Hauer-King does a good job at restraining it; her use of the performance space is brilliant – sympathetic to the script and aiding clarity.
Rebekah Hinds, Izzy Tennyson and Grace Chilton
For all her bad posture and face pulling, Tennyson is incredibly magnetic. Her observational comedy is spot on, her talent for satire considerable, and she is a real original. Too many lines are hurried, there aren’t enough pauses for some great jokes, but I was transfixed by this performance. Her fellow actors often do better at the technical delivery of her words. With fewer idiosyncrasies, Rebekah Hinds and Grace Chilton put on a fine show as ex-lovers who have affairs with Rigby in turn, making a plot line crying out for elaboration work. And Anita-Joy Uwajeh is superb with her transformations into three roles.
Anita Joy Uwajeh
So what really is grotty? It’s not the play’s explicit sexual content. Although Rigby’s encounters with symphorophilia are darkly hilarious, her definition of lesbian sex is one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. What’s grotty turns out to be the connections between people: the characteristics and insights we pick up from lovers, the inheritance of our experiences. And this idea is, frankly, a downer. What happens to the capital-letter Self from such a premise? In Rigby’s demented, disturbing struggle, Self is compromised and objectified, becoming “an experience rather than a person”. And defined by work – “I am an intern” is the drug-induced cry – not an identity, just a job. Add a matricidal urge that would have a psychoanalyst doing cartwheels, leading to a twist brilliantly handled by Hauer-King, and we come close to being lost in Tennyson’s psyche – so compelling does it become. But the real kicker is this fear of connection when applied to a Structuralist simulacrum that offers love – a meeting with another, I suspect that should be an Other, who mirrors Rigby. And is rejected. At this point you just want to hug the girl. Not so much grotty as grim – but brilliant at the same time.
Ben Chaplin plays a successful record producer and Seána Kerslake an up-and-coming singer-songwriter who battle over creative pre-eminence in Joe Penhall’s new play. The roles make for good viewing: the unbelievable arrogance of Chaplin’s Bernard is as entertaining as the vulnerability of Kerslake’s character, Cat, is moving. And the contrast between their approaches to music, focusing on his obsession with “precision”, are dramatically effective. As their disagreements exacerbate tensions, and come to include undertones of sexual exploitation, the mood turns increasingly sour and the play comes to comment on our times. Given The Old Vic’s recent history, there’s piquancy to hear such issues here. But, although it isn’t Penhall’s fault – his big theme is who and how someone might own creativity – the topic of sexism in the arts is raised so obliquely it is discomforting.
The play is as much about the music industry as it is about the musicians. That this might excuse behaviour is offered as an explanation too many times. But Roger Mitchell’s direction and Hildegard Bechtler’s impressive set – with the stage reaching out well into the auditorium – make the connections between those making music and those behind the scenes clear. The creatives are overwhelmed, each having their own psychotherapist and their own lawyer. There are strong performances (from Pip Carter, Kurt Egyiawan, Jemma Redgrave and Neil Stuke), but all the characters are clearly there to prove points. A lot of what’s said – about artists and mental health or intellectual property and justice – is funny, a little of it thought provoking. Unfortunately, nearly all of it is predictable.
The writing, however, is stunning: the text has an impressive musicality of its own, conversations interweave and tone varies constantly. But, with depressing prescience, it’s all too easy to see what’s coming next. A flippant complaint from Cat is propelled into a criminal issue. That this is instigated and escalated by professionals who could potentially profit from her misery is an uncomfortable suggestion. There are some brave opinions expressed, alongside some pretty awful ones, and Penhall puts drama on the flesh of issues in a way that newspaper headlines can’t. But, despite its sharp subject matter, Mood Music is flat. For all the importance of these topics, the danger is that they don’t make good drama. For a general audience these trials and tribulations of the creative industries come close to solipsism; no matter how well Penhall vocalises this, it is a dreary sound.
As the humour in Tom Vallen’s play shows, it’s temptingly easy to make fun of the idea that someone can be addicted to exercise. Along with being such a baffling notion to most of us, the macho rituals surrounding a workout create plenty of smiles. But Vallen aims to use the jokes pointedly in his serious play. Sponsored by the Body Dismorphic Disorder Foundation, this is a dramatic look at a psychological problem with tragic consequences that’s thought-provoking and important.
As a writing debut the piece is modest but sound. A slightly too speedy journey into body dysmorphia, with little grounding and only suggested explanations, is documented rather than explored. Another debut, as director, from Philip Scott-Wallace is more assured with the cast thoroughly drilled and their comings and goings choreographed nicely. Undoubtedly, Vallen has written a brilliant showcase for his acting talent as he takes the central role of Will. His physicality in the piece is sure to impress while the descent into anxiety is meticulously delivered.
Vallen’s co-stars also do well. Jennifer Brooke fleshes out her role as Will’s girlfriend Rebecca remarkably, suggesting the real woman beyond Will’s romantic ideas. As Will’s womanising gym buddy, a character of surprising depth, and then Rebecca’s colleague, Gabriel Akuwudike makes the most of two chances to impress, skipping between the roles to great effect. Showing the impact on friends and loved ones of such a damaging mental health condition is a sobering addition. There is a notable lack of sympathy for the play’s once amiable lead, who turns psychotic so abruptly, that gives the play dramatic bite.
It’s a brave actress who takes on a role made famous by Judi Dench but as Christine, the alcoholic autophobic landlady of Rodney Ackland’s play, Kate Fleetwood brings her usual consummate skill to the job. Like her club, which remained open throughout the Blitz, Christine is falling apart just as World War II ends and most people are starting life again. Acclaim should be shared with Charles Edwards as Hugh, a too-regular-regular and once promising author who remains sympathetic despite his scrounging and whining. The couple’s love lives and drunken desperation power the play into a dark territory that makes this a fascinating piece.
Charles Edwards and Jonathan Slinger
The members of La Vie En Rose club create the kind of ensemble show the National Theatre excels in, and the size of the cast alone is impressive. Sinéad Matthews does well as the louche Elizabeth, carrying on an affair in front of her long-term partner Siegfried (Danny Webb), while Jonathan Slinger’s gloriously camp film director Maurice Hussey attempts to live up to his name. If Martins Imhangbe doesn’t quite convince as the object of all affections, the fault lies with the writer – the earnest GI’s sincerity has no place amongst all this narcissism and nastiness. Which isn’t to say you won’t enjoy watching the club’s habitués: there’s a strong collection of comic cameos, including Liza Sadovy as an heiress dubbed The Treacle Queen, and Lloyd Hutchinson’s mad artist.
Everyone is escaping, and it’s a theme Ackland is less than subtle with. The play’s first incarnation was in the 1950s and overtones of Existentialism overpower it. Director Joe Hill-Gibbons decides not to restrain the piece and excesses occur, including poor Rachel Dale as local prostitute Fifi forced to walk around the stage all night – surely a little too literal? Lizzie Clachan’s set design does not serve the play well. There’s a lot of coming and going here and using the whole of the Lyttleton stage as well as giving the club three flights of stairs makes it all rather exhausting to watch.
Both play and production make up for problems with the humour on offer. Above all, it’s startlingly original. This cruel look at war-time Britain isn’t the kind of thing we are used to – no wonder it shocked so soon after the events depicted. As a satirist, Ackland is a harsh master. As insult and faux pas fly, characters become increasingly diminished in the audience’s eyes. Is there anyone to root for here? There are certainly no failings that aren’t ruthlessly exposed. The humour is out-and-out biting, vicious and extreme. And, by delivering absolutes, the play becomes heaven rather than hell.
Diving into the start of a season of plays written by women and presented under the title ‘Who Runs the World?’, this hour-long show – written by and featuring Sarah Milton – goes swimmingly well as we follow young Daisy in and around the pool during her first competitive race. With family and friends all portrayed by Milton, it’s a bravura performance with plenty of laughs, serious topics and a dramatic trauma. There’s undoubtedly too much going on, but the mood swings mirror teenage life uncannily and the skill behind the show should make it a gold-medal winner.
Milton’s ability as a writer can best be seen with the allowance she makes for an audience’s more sophisticated responses to the authentic young voices we hear. It’s a space in the text that director Tom Wright is sympathetic to. Whether it’s Daisy’s laugh-out-loud insensitivity or comments from adults that we understand the motivation for more than she does, this is a look at a Millennial mind-set that patronises neither young nor old. It’s disappointing that a central plot, around a criminal boyfriend, isn’t elaborated. And overall Daisy’s youth results in observations on life that are predictable and pat; the good will built up towards the character has to save the show. Thankfully, there is plenty of it.
Milton’s skills as a performer are highly impressive, having created a strong central role and some lovely cameos for herself she really delivers. The split-second changes between characters are impressive, if showy. The comedy skills feel instinctive – her timing a joy to watch. But what really makes the performance special is the way the crowd is worked. Wright creates moments when Daisy is removed from us despite her narration – caught up in the cleansing power of swimming or a revealing nightmare. But most of the time Daisy appeals directly and Milton is superb at this: creating intimacy, engendering confidences and truly winning hearts. Let’s hope medals follow.
On the day of the London marathon, an award for endurance is deserved by director Tom Littler, the mastermind behind this revival of one-act plays by Noël Coward. Presented as three trilogies – that you can happily attend separately and in any order – the chance to see these seldom performed works classes as a Theatrical Event. With nine actors preforming 75 roles, everyone should agree it deserves those capital letters.
The groups differ from Coward’s original selection but still showcase his writing perfectly. As a comedian, Coward is seldom bettered, his plays full of wit and delicious satire driven by great observations. But we also have Coward as a writer of romance, with insight into the power and pain of love. And he’s an artist full of original ideas. Littler’s skill is to treat each text seriously, to understand the complexity of its construction, and every play benefits from this intelligence and respect. See one, or even better see all three; it’s tough to recommend a favourite but here are some highlights based on the groups as titled.
Secret Hearts
This set stars with a sparkling comedy. Suffice to say the scenario of a group of actors trying to perform as a charity committee is as funny as it sounds. Theatrical back-biting and pretentions abound and nearly every line gets a chuckle. The whole ensemble appears and shows how even their abilities are. In subsequent plays, Boadicea Ricketts and Ben Wiggins fill a variety of smaller parts, but their roles here reveal them both as strong performers.
Nick Waring and Miranda Foster in “Still Life”
Musical hall veterans The Red Peppers make an appearance in the second play, the roles are ably performed by Rosemary Ashe and Jeremy Rose. But the piece hasn’t dated as well – a regional variety show isn’t something many people have experienced and it’s unclear how much respect we are supposed to have for our leading couple. But what comes next is unmissable: Still Life is the play that became Brief Encounter. It’s full of familiar characters, jokes and lines. Littler brings an admirable freshness to the piece and garners superb performances from Nick Waring and Miranda Foster as the star-crossed couple who sacrifice passion for the sake of their marriages. The chemistry between the two is so fantastic that it is transporting to watch them.
Bedroom Farces
Waring and Foster flex their comic skills in Ways And Means as a scheming couple down on their luck. It may be slight but it’s still pleasing. Another strong pairing comes with Ian Hallard and Sarah Crowe. First, there’s a take on Brief Encounter that’s purely for comedy with love at first sight, on the dance floor, followed by an oh-so civilised discussion about what to do next and a suitably cynical end.
Ian Hallard and Sara Crowe in “Shadow Play”
The confirmation of Hallard and Crowe’s comic skills is clear, but later, in Shadow Play, they perform as a couple with marital problems that tugs at the heart strings. For all the cut-glass accents and wealthy posturing that often gets a laugh, both performers remind us that these are people we can relate to. A love gone cold and a struggle to remember happier times come together in a review of their relationship via a sleeping pill-induced dream that shows a surprisingly surreal Coward. The singing and score are startlingly contemporary. The whole piece is a revelation.
Nuclear Families
This set boasts two comedies and a fine drama. For Family Album, Coward’s target is the hypocrisy surrounding funerals. Victorian vibes through a stunning wardrobe make it a good place to mention the consistently strong work from costume designer Emily Stuart. The satire is biting and musical director Stefan Bednardczyk serves as a scene-stealing butler. Again, it’s the music Bednardczyk plays that provides the surprise, with songs serving to show snatches of memory and fleeting moods in a bold manner. There’s more comedy with Hands Across the Sea, a personal favourite, where Coward takes aim at the Britishers’ attitude to their own colonial cousins: it’s bright, snappy and eminently quotable.
The ensemble in “Family Album”
As a finale, a psychiatrist is driven mad by love in another drama of infidelity that is riven with tension. Foster and Waring are paired again, and the result is explosive. Their intelligent characters are full of “clear cold sense” in a play of surprisingly raw emotion. The unexpected makes for a theme of much presented here. As with all the offerings in Tonight at 8.30,this is a humbling demonstration of Coward’s talents, produced and performed by an impeccable team.
This work from Audrey Cefaly won the Edgerton Foundation new American play award and receives its European premiere under the careful direction of Matthew Gould. The Gulfis an artful, confidently quiet two-hander that examines a dying romance with powerful realism.
The lovers, well performed by Anna Acton and Louisa Lytton, are Betty and Kendra and it’s a case of opposites attracting. If you side with one party, it could well be revealing. And there’s the potential to take some of their wisdom away with you. Describing herself as “delightful”, Betty is a dreamer with a head full of plans and ambition. A bit of a snob, maybe, and with a secret to hide, Acton conveys all of her character’s complexity in satisfying style. Lytton’s Kendra is, appropriately, more charismatic. She describes herself as “a beast”, but obtuse is the better word used – living in the here and now there seems more awareness, a deeper intelligence, and Acton’s skill lies in revealing this.
Some snags may have arisen in the play’s move to the UK. It’s not quite obvious how old the women are, if indeed that matters, so when they talk about going to college it isn’t clear how mature a student each would be. In both instances, how dissatisfied they are, or should be, with small-town life could also be made more explicit. Finally, in my ignorance of geography, I’m not sure how much peril the women are in when their boat breaks down or whether Betty’s subsequent hysteria is justified or a telling revelation of character.
Quibbles aside, Cefaly’s writing of emotional intimacy is accomplished, exploring deep inside a relationship. Gould never upsets the tension or overplays the suggestion of physical violence, while the chemistry between the two is perfectly portrayed. Such a character-driven piece, with relatively low stakes and little plot, will not excite everyone but, as a close study, clear in purpose and execution, the play is impressive.
Guleraana Mir’s debut production shows a writer of sound promise. This is a romantic comedy of multi-cultural manners with a great sense of humour, but looking for serious commitment. The titular insult is that someone can be brown on the outside yet white on the inside and our heroine Rumi comes to ‘own’ the label in Millennial style, providing an alternative happy ending in the process. Audiences are ripe for different kinds of stories just like this – about a young modern Muslim woman – and Mir’s writing is a terrific response to demands for unstereotyped diversity, with a brilliant lead character and an emotional journey that feels realistic, regardless of how modish.
There are problems, which a firmer hand from director and dramaturg Madelaine Moore might have corrected. Structurally there are too many short scenes, some of which could be cut, and there’s a lack of confidence about when to call it a day. Considering the clash of cultures, with Rumi’s double life of booze and bacon, there’s surprisingly little tension – maybe that’s the point? The role of Simon, Rumi’s love interest, relies on the performance of Jimmy Carter to really work; his conversion to Islam is relegated to a subplot and big issues aren’t addressed with enough attention. Likewise, the character of an Iman is uncomfortably flat, the scenes are slow, and the subject matter cries out for more perspectives. The wish to meet parents, vividly mentioned, threatens to become overwhelming.
Coconut is resolutely one woman’s story and, thankfully, what a woman. Rumi commands so much attention she has an alter ego – brilliantly portrayed by Tibu Fortes as a fantasy figure called Riz – and is overall adorable. I am biased, since she is a blogger (food, not theatre) but her frankness, self-knowledge and above all risqué humour should win over anyone. Here’s Mir’s strength: the comedy is brave and strong, with several laugh-out-loud moments. In the lead, Kuran Dohil is a real find, it’s hard to believe hers is the evening’s second professional debut, so comfortable does she appear on stage. The play’s finale sees a new career for a Rumi as a stand-up comedian, billed by Time Out as “one to watch”. With her delightfully natural performance and impeccable timing, I’ll second that review.
