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Grief and guilt
(Spoiler alert – this is a new play, and I do write about what happens in it) This is a 95‑minute play, performed without an interval, high in emotion and very well acted. It follows a young, pregnant couple from their mid‑pregnancy scan, during which they experience the joy of feeling the baby move for…
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First bad crêpe of the year
Even when I don’t particularly enjoy a play, I rarely regret going to the theatre. But Woman in Mind is an exception. The strength of my feelings has nothing to do with the acting. In fact, Sheridan Smith flipping between reality and conjecture was impressive; Romesh Ranganathan as the bumbling doctor – a role that…
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Now
Sir Ian at Richmond Theatre, raising money for the Orange Tree: https://orangetreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/ian-mckellen-26/ Not a play, rather ‘The best of classical music’ or ‘The best opera arias.’ Two plus hours of one of the world’s greatest actors reciting poems and Shakespeare’s prime soliloquies. And all the while Sir Ian makes you feel that this is not…
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In denial
The play unfolds under a sun that becomes a moon that becomes a window, transformed from one to the next by astonishing lighting. The stage is stripped back and altar-like – sparse but not soulless. The fallen tree foreshadows the downfall to come. The opening scene says everything you need to know if you are…
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The existential tiger – Aesop’s fable for the XXI-st century
Set in the early days of the second Gulf War, and premiering before the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, this harrowing play charts the brutal acts taking place both before and during the American occupation from the vantage point of the ghost of an existential tiger. Suspended in purgatory, the tiger’s ghost walks the…
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Jealous much?
My gaze was drawn to the stage immediately. I was instantly mesmerised by the ancient elegance of gilded arches that created exquisite depth and perspective. They seemed like stargates, mirrors, windows, or worldly doorways pulling me in. As the play unfolded, the staging, lighting, and projections remained captivating, sometimes to the point that I almost…
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Theatre of the not-so-absurd
When, in February 1933, the two live-in maids Christine and Léa Papin brutally murdered their employer and her daughter in Le Mans, the French public saw the crime as an act of revolt by the downtrodden working class against their bourgeois oppressors. Fourteen years later, Jean Genet transformed the case into one of the earliest…
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Time to talk
Have you ever gone for a walk, only to feel a bit cold or weary and decide to duck into a pub for a rest? You order a pint, or perhaps a hot drink, and settle down with a book—until a group of old mates ambles in. No matter how you try to focus on…
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Womanhood rather than woman
Mary Page observes that preparing someone’s taxes is more intriguing than it might seem, as it enables you to construct a vivid portrait from little more than a shoebox of receipts—and this is precisely what the play compels the audience to do. The play traces the life of Mary Page Marlowe’s from birth to near…
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Muted not menacing
On 7 May 1964, The Guardian described Orton’s first play as a ‘milk-curdling essay in lower-middle-class nihilism’. A dark farce, it aimed to shock contemporary audiences with taboo subjects, including homosexuality. By the time the screen version appeared in 1970, sex between men over 21 had been legalised in England. Disdain lingered, but the silence…
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