Tim Hochstrasser

Tim Hochstrasser is a life-long enthusiast for and supporter of the performing arts in all forms, from classic to contemporary. By day he teaches and lectures intellectual and cultural history at LSE and also conducts guided historical walks around London. By night he is usually in a theatre, possibly followed by a cabaret chaser...

REVIEW: City Stories, St James Studio ✭✭✭✭✭

Off West End, Reviews
City Stories at the St james Studio in London

This therefore is work at a sophisticated creative level, where everything depends in a very pure, basic sense on the players themselves. There is no scenery, only a few hints at costume – a hat or a coat here and there – and some chairs where needed. It’s worth stressing too that the St James Studio, with the stage shunted off to one side to accommodate a bar, is not the easiest place to reel an audience in collectively. There are too many awkward angles and levels to play to, and the stage space available is tiny. Great credit then to all the players and to James Phillips for his direction, quite apart from his luminous yet precisely calibrated writing.

REVIEW: Stony Broke In No Man’s Land, Finborough Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Off West End, Reviews
Stony Broke in No Man's Land at the Finborough Theatre

With a plethora of films and plays about the tragedy and waste of the Great War I wondered initially whether there would be scope for the themes addressed here to touch me – the veins of both satire and mourning have been well worked after all. But in its oblique yet quietly insistent way this two-hander brought home the lingering effects of war on the bereaved and on those left behind more powerfully than many big-budget dramas. It would be excellent to see Brett and Williams repeat their performances on a national tour so that Stony Broke can reach out to a broader audience across the country in these years of commemoration.

REVIEW: The Taming Of The Shrew, New Wimbledon Studio ✭✭✭✭✭

Off West End, Reviews
The Taming Of The Shrew at the New Wimbledon Theatre

The Taming Of The Shrew New Wimbledon Studio 27 May 2015 5 Stars BOOK TICKETS A ravaged, mouthy derelict with a can of beer was slumped outside the entrance to the New Wimbledon Studio when I arrived for the Press Night of this new production of The Taming of the Shrew. I thought no more of it until the same individual emerged in the theatre ahead of curtain up interacting rowdily with the stage manager, turning over a few chairs, and giving members of the audience minor grief. And then the penny dropped: the play had already started and we were in the midst not of a incident involving the police but a brilliantly improvised version of ‘The Induction’, the framing device for the play-within-a play that is this early Shakespearean comedy. As Christopher Sly, the toper to be placated and entertained, Christopher Neels gave us the first of many … Read more

REVIEW: The Flannelettes, King’s Head Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Off West End, Reviews
The Flannelettes at the King's Head Theatre

The Flannelettes King’s Head Theatre 19 May 2015 5 Stars The Flannelettes come to the King’s Head Theatre as part of its 45th anniversary celebrations. The play re-unites Richard Cameron and Mike Bradwell, the team that had such a success at the Bush with The Glee Club (2002) and similar works. It shares many similar qualities with its nationally successful predecessor: a setting in a depressed Northern town, populated by tough or exploited women and violent or ineffectual men; where music fills the huge gap between the rough circumstances of everyday life and the aspirations and longings of the soul within. The curtain goes up on a Tamla Motown tribute routine in a Miners’ Welfare Club, which introduces us to five of the six characters in the play – Brenda (Suzan Sylvester), a widow who runs the local women’s refuge; her niece, Delie (Emma Hook), who is aged 22 but … Read more

REVIEW: Show Off, The Pheasantry ✭✭✭✭

Cabaret, Off West End, Reviews
Nikki Aiten in Show Off At The Pheasantry

Nikki Aitken, with pianist Simona Budd, performed Show Off. Aitken is a widely recognized artist in Australia where she has won awards for her cabaret programmes and to which she will be returning soon in the Australian tour of Amity Dry’s Mother, Wife and the Complicated Life. She is also a composer in her own right, both of cabaret numbers and of a new musical GO!, which received a fine first workshop outing last summer at the Camden Fringe Festival, as reviewed here by Stephen Collins. On the basis of this performance she will surely consolidate that reputation further.

REVIEW: Beyond Bollywood, London Palladium ✭✭

Reviews, West End
Beyond Bollywood at the London Palladium

All these positives on the creative side only sharpen the regret that this reviewer and clearly many of the audience felt that we were not seeing more of the unmediated original. In transferring great artistic traditions across cultures it is best to take the risk and present them raw and full-on, and invite the audience to rise to the full extent of the challenge, rather than diluting the formula to meet the audience half-way.