REVIEW: Lesere, Jermyn Street Theatre ✭✭

Lesere at Jermyn Street Theatre

In terms of lighting, set, costumes, sound and design the creative team led by director Donnacadh O’Briain do a very solid job, alongside the cast. But the professionalism of the production cannot make up for the fact that an interesting concept and scenario does not find a convincing, sustained realisation in the writing.

REVIEW: The Four Fridas, Royal Artillery Barracks ✭✭✭

The Four Fridas

Memories still linger of the impressive Opening Ceremonies to the Olympic and Paralympic Games held in London in 2012, and The Four Fridas is best viewed as a (partly) successful coda to those spectacles. Bradley Hemmings, the director here, who was also responsible for the scene-setter to the Paralympics, writes in the brochure that Frida Kahlo was one of the representative images of the disabled he originally considered for that event; and now he has returned to her life as the basis of a meditation on the relationship between creativity and the overcoming of disability and persecution.

REVIEW: Orson’s Shadow, Southwark Playhouse ✭✭✭✭✭

Orson's Shadow at Southwark Playhouse

The play is staged in the round with a pleasing and teasing contrast between the artifice stage convention and informality. The gestures towards setting are practical and functional and do not distract from the verbal duelling of the players, which is the heart and centre of the action. While there have been several productions in the USA, this play has had only one previous outing here, and for the quality and intensity of the writing and acting it deserves a long and successful run.

REVIEW: Black Cat Cabaret – Nocturne, London Wonderground ✭✭✭

The Black Cat Cabaret - Nocturne at London Wonderground

One of the most exciting features of the current fairground-cluster that is London Wonderground on the South Bank is the focus on late night cabaret. In the summer months of the festival many of the leading figures in the London cabaret scene are passing through, sometimes more than once and in different and intriguing combinations. After their award-winning success at Wonderground last year, there were great expectations of the Black Cat Cabaret’s new ninety-minute show, Nocturne, which runs on selected Fridays until early September.

REVIEW: The Gruffalo, Lyric Theatre ✭✭✭✭

The Gruffalo at the Lyric Theatre, London

Matilda this show is not – the original and the adaptation are thin fare in comparison with the disturbing and multi-layered creations of Dahl and his later creative adapters. But on its own terms this show achieves exactly what it sets out to do and fully deserves the appreciation of reviewers, whether aged eight or eighty.

REVIEW: Asking Rembrandt, Old Red Lion Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Asking Rembrandt at The Old Red Lion Theattre

There is not much room for manoeuvre upstairs at the Old Red Lion, but the creative team, led by director Jonathan Kemp, have put together a flexible and well dressed set that provides a richly textured backdrop for the play, full of relevant artistic clutter and debris and gorgeous fabrics – self-consciously theatrical in a way that is entirely appropriate for the paintings from this period in Rembrandt’s life. The intimate atmosphere and finely calibrated acting draws you into the relationships and the issues very quickly, and as a result we have a properly tough-minded, and warm-hearted night at the theatre. The play runs until mid-July and is rewarding in every respect. And you may never think of gloves in quite the same way ever again….

REVIEW: Joking Apart, Theatre Royal Windsor ✭✭✭✭

Joking Apart by Alan Ayckbourn at Theatre Royal Windsor

As with so many theatres of a certain age, the bar at the Theatre Royal is proudly lined with photos of bygone productions from the golden age of repertory theatre; and there, sure enough, were the production shots of a 1986 production of this very play, Joking Apart – all duffle coats, cravats and tweed jackets, floral print dresses, and big, frizzy hair-dos, taking you straight back to the 1970s. But the lesson of this fine production is that this is a timeless play that holds up as true a mirror to our foibles now as ever it did before.