Dubailand offers a striking portrayal of the titular city, which does great credit to its writer. It is an enjoyable play, characterised by a good cast and a number of thought-provoking and well worked motifs. Nevertheless, the central narrative feels at times implausible and incomplete, making it also a slightly unsatisfying experience.
Rodney Ackland’s After October will be presented at London’s Finborough Theatre for a limited season from 22 November – 22 December 2016, the first time the play has been performed in central London for eighty years. Hampstead, 1936. In a shabby basement flat, aspiring playwright Clive Monkhams dreams of a West End hit and winning Francie’s heart. His bankrupt mother Rhoda, a faded actress, frets about the bills and the fortunes of her penniless daughters while reminiscing about her glory days. Clive’s family and an entourage of bohemian dependants all need him to make it big. With opening night approaching and finances fast running out, everything rides on the success of the play and, for Clive, the future looks all too glittering… Renown for his plays Absolute Hell and Before The Party, After October is Ackland’s most autobiographical play. It is both a fascinating portrait of an impoverished family on … Read more
Musically, this is a serious work, that demands a lot of its listeners; but it repays handsomely in its dramatic and aesthetic effects.
Following an acclaimed sell-out run earlier this year at the Finborough Theatre, producers have announced that It Is Easy To Be Dead will transfer to Trafalgar Studios 2 for a limited season from 9 November to 3 December 2016. When twenty-year-old Charles Sorley is killed in action during the First World War, his devastated parents are left with only his letters and poems to remember him by. Using his extraordinary writings, together with music and songs of the period, It Is Easy To Be Dead is a tender portrait of a brief life filled with promise, cut short by the futility of war. Charles Sorley was a witty, intelligent and spirited young man from Aberdeen, with a talent for poetry and dreams of escaping his privileged background. Studying in Germany in 1914 – where he was briefly imprisoned as an enemy alien – his life, like those of millions of … Read more
Neil McPherson’s play It Is Easy To Be Dead commemorating the centenary of the Battle Of The Somme, will have its World premiere at the Finborough Theatre from 15 June – 9 July 2016. It Is Easy To Be Dead is based on the poetry, letters and brief life of Charles Hamilton Sorley. Born in Aberdeen, Charles Sorley was studying in Germany when the First World War broke out and was briefly imprisoned as an enemy alien. He was one of the first to join the army in 1914. Killed in action a year later at the age of 20, his poems are among the most ambivalent , profound and moving war poetry ever written. It Is Easy To Be Dead tells the story of Sorley’s brief life through his work, with music and songs from some of the greatest composers of the period including George Butterworth, Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna, … Read more
Following his appearance in Bend It Like Beckham, Jamie Muscato will star in The Finborough Theatre’s new production of John Osborne’s A Subject Of Scandal and Concern from 22 May – 7 June 2016. This new production will be the first theatrical staging for over 40 years and will mark the plays London premiere. Based on the true story of the last man to stand trial for blasphemy in England, A Subject Of Scandal and Concern was originally written for television in 1960 starring Richard Burton and Rachel Roberts, and directed by Tony Richardson, and was first seen onstage in Nottingham in the early 1960s. Cheltenham, 1842. George Jacob Holyoake is a poor young teacher, making his way from Birmingham to Bristol to visit a friend who has been imprisoned for publishing a journal that criticises the establishment. When he makes a stop in Cheltenham to address a lecture, his … Read more
The Finborough Theatre will open its Summer Season with the world premiere of a new play, Stone Face by Eve Leigh. Catherine was fifteen when she was found. She and her mother shared a secret world in an anonymous one-bedroom flat in London. No one is even sure if she’s ever left the room she was found in. She can’t walk and can’t speak. Her recovery seems impossible. But young people can be shockingly resilient, especially with inspired medical care. Sponsored by a fundraising drive led by a tabloid newspaper, her only living relative has been able to get Catherine the best private care that money can buy. She responds well to the experimental treatment. But she seems to be getting more violent, and remains stubbornly resistant to language. Or is she? Soon, Catherine’s doctors and half-sister begin to discover what it is, exactly, that they’ve uncovered… A fairytale of … Read more
In a production commissioned by the Finborough Theatre, the London premiere – and the first production in over 40 years – of John Osborne’s A Subject Of Scandal And Concern will run at the Finborough Theatre from 22 May 2016. Cheltenham, 1842. George Jacob Holyoake is a poor young teacher, making his way from Birmingham to Bristol to visit a friend who has been imprisoned for publishing a journal that criticises the establishment. When he makes a stop in Cheltenham to address a lecture, his words and his overwhelming commitment to speaking the truth will change his life forever. Arrested and tried for blasphemy, and separated from his starving wife and child, Holyoake is faced with the choice of conforming to the establishment or staying true to his beliefs during in a time of injustice and intolerance. Based on the true story of the last man to stand trial for … Read more
