It leaves us with a slight regret that, as with so many English comedians of her generation, Joyce Grenfell did not emerge more often from the comfort zone in which she had successfully built her reputation. We can be very grateful though to the Knights for demonstrating how brightly her legacy, both comic and quietly tragic, still shines.
Marber is not writing just about football. The play is fundamentally about notions of masculinity as well as about modern society. The trio represents a kind of football holy trinity – all connected, and representing father, son and spirit. Which of the trio fulfils which role is not always clear, sometimes shifts, and this is perhaps the most interesting aspect of Marber’s play. Calvin Demba is adept at displaying Jordan’s naivety as well as his darker, more complex side. Peter Wight is compelling as the sad, lonely, committed club man, Yates, whose life is entirely centred on the game and The Red Lion.
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.
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.
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
The cast, like a fine soufflé, is full of first rate choices and rises to the occasion in exactly the right way. The singing here is glorious. The Gershwins make a lot of demands upon singers and Williams ensures that every note is hit truly and that the froth and bubble in the music is given full release. The dance routines in Nice Work If You Can Get It, Stiff Upper Lip, I Can’t Be Bothered Now, French Pastry Walk and Fidgety Feet are effortlessly engaging, thrilling to watch. As you emerge from the auditorium, it is impossible not be cheery.
It’s a great story, but the show’s most glittering treasure is its music. There are folk tunes, love songs, impassioned ballads, comedy numbers, patter songs, soaring melodies, complex harmonies and splendid polyphony, all with a sprinkle of Irish jig around the edges. The inherent power and attraction of the score is helped in no small measure by a superbly assured delivery of the most difficult, and gorgeous, music by Jennifer Harding who excels in the central role of Constance. This is an engaging, absorbing, fantastical musical, radiant with possibility and truth. It’s confronting in parts and heartbreaking in others. And it is full of magical moments.
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
