Archive for October, 2025

The Assembled Parties (Hampstead Theatre)

Posted: October 27, 2025 in Theatre
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Photo: Helen Murray

Writer: Richard Greenberg

Director: Blanche McIntyre

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They say that Christmas begins earlier every year and, as if to prove the point, it has already arrived at Hampstead Theatre. American writer Richard Greenberg’s comedy The Assembled Parties, which premiered on Broadway in 2013,  centres around a New York family gathered together on two Christmases, 20 years apart. Much of the play’s humour draws from the irony of members of the Jewish faith (albeit npn-practicinh) celebrating a Christian festival.

The play opens in 1980, when Ronald Reagan has just been elected to serve his first term as United States President. In their Manhattan apartment, Ben (Daniel Abelson) and his wife, former actress Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt) play hosts; their elder son Scotty (Alexander Marks) has just graduated from university and is seeking direction in his life; he brings along old school friend Jeff (Sam Marks). The assembled party is completed by the arrival of Ben’s sister Faye (Tracy-Ann Oberman), her husband Mort (David Kennedy) and their daughter Shelley (Julia Kass).

Family members meet in pairs or groups to discuss politics, careers, finances, relationships and so on. James Cotterill’s impressive set design is dominated by a huge, fully decorated Christmas tree and a revolving stage ushers us from room to room. Director Blanche McIntyre’s solid production moves along briskly; it is all mildly  amusing, but rather inconsequential.

Act two jumps forward to 2000, when Bill Clinton has just entered the final month of his eight-year Presidency. The family, numbers now depleted, gathers again at Julie’s rented home. The Christmas tree is smaller, but the apartment is more spacious, expanding to the full width od the Hampstead stage. The focus now falls on Julie’s younger son Tim (also played by Alexander Marks), a college drop-out who works as a waiter and is involved in a secret relationship with a gentile woman. Introducing themes of loss and regeneration, the later stages of the play have added poignancy.

Greenber’s flair for feeding his characters with acerbic one-liners shines throughout and, with the lines being delivered with precusion by this highly accomplished cast, they become the main joy of the evening. Otherwise, there is nothing to dislike about The Assembled Parties, but nor is there much to rave about and, on this evidence, it is not easy to understand why the play received three Tony Award nominations. This comedy is a Christmas trifle, like a light dessert served without a main course.

Performance date: 23 October 2025

The Maids (Donmar Warehouse)

Posted: October 26, 2025 in Theatre
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Photo: Marc Brenner

Writer: Jean Genet

Adaptor and director: Kip Williams

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“Everybody ought to have a maid” asserted Stephen Sondheim famously in song, but the great lyricist could well have had second thoughts after seeing French writer Jean Genet’s 1947 play The Maids, which is revived here. The tale of two mischievous, murderous chambermaids was originally seen as a parable about a crumbling class system, but adaptor and director Kip Williams packs it with up-to-date references and transforms it into a satire on the cult of celebrity worship.

When we first encounter the sisters Claire and Solange, they are stepping aside from their daily duties in the boudoir of their employer, “Madame”. They take turns to impersonate Madame, they wear her expensive clothes, they scheme to undermine her latest boyfriend, who  is facing trial on fraud charges, and they plot her murder. Madame is expected home soon and her fans are congregating on the street below; like them, the sisters adore Madame, but they also loathe her in equal measure.

Madame eventually arrives, frantically worried about the fate of her boyfriend, and she is every bit as ghastly as the sisters’ impersonations have warned us, cruelly taunting each of her maids in turn. The point is made that all three characters are essentially the same and confrontations continue in a similar vein, whichever two of the three are on stage. Herein lies the play’s chief problem – repetition. Almost every scene begins to feel like a re-run of the one that preceded it.

Williams never asks the audience to invest in the characters emotionally, sustaining a surreal feel to the drama throughout. Exceptionally forceful performances by Yerin Ha, Phia Shaban and Lydia Wilson energise the production and lift it out of the play’s most sticky patches. Together, the three young actors resemble a group of lovestruck schoolgirls forming a fan club for, say, a pop star, although it is always clear that evil lies on the horizon.

This is a very grand production of a very small play. one that, arguably, could have been staged just as effectively at a small fringe venue with no formal set. As it is, set designer Rosanna Vize pulls out all the stops with a stunning boudoir bedecked with all things beige. The opening scene is performed entirely behind net curtains, thereby mystifying (and irritating) the audience and giant mirrors double as video screens, playing their part in Williams’ assault on our senses. However, there are concerns that gimmicks are being used to divert attention from the play’s shortcomings and paper over obvious cracks.

There is much to enjoy in Williams’ radical re-working of Genet’s obscure classic, but 100 minutes of this weird and often anarchic spectacle is more than enough.  Nonetheless, the points that it makes about the dangers of modern celebrity culture hit home strongly.

Performance date: 22 October 2025

Blessings (Riverside Studios)

Posted: October 6, 2025 in Theatre
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Phoyp: Lidia Crisafulli

Writer and director: Sarah Shelton

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Rather surprisingly, Sarah Shelton’s Blessings is a new play. It is a family drama that takes place in 1969 and its style feels even more dated than its subject matter or its time setting. Seeing the play performed in the modern fringe venue that is Riverside Studios brings the anachronism into still sharper focus.

The voice of Tony Blackburn telling us to turn off our ‘phones informs us that we are being transported back to the 1960s and snippets from familiar songs scattered throughout the play remind us of the fact. The Deacons are a respectable lower middle class family, living in a small English town. Patriarch Frank (Gary Webster) is the breadwinner, but he faces regular complaints that he withdraws from involvement in family affairs  and he finds solace at the local pub. Matriarch Dorrie (Anna Acton), a staunch Roman Catholic, is, seemingly, the rock that supports the whole family. Her support comes from the parish priest, who is accused of prying too deeply into family business.

Son Martin (Freddie Webster) has already flown the nest for London, but he shows determination to maintain family unity and respectability, particularly when faced with the news that his unmarried teenage sister Frances (Hannah Traylen) is pregnant. Other sisters, Penny (Milly Roberts) and Sally (Emily Lane) face up to their own problems. There is enough meat here for the writer to bite on to extract either comedy or drama, but, by packing the play with sub-plots, she is only able to scratch at the surfaces of both characters and storylines, leaving the actors very little to work with.

In structure and in content the play resembles a very long episode of, say, Eastenders, with a succession of short scenes bringing together characters who then disappear behind the screens which feature in Alice Carroll’s curious set design. The 1960s saw a new age of realism in British drama, but this is rarely reflected in this production and many of the dramatic flashpoints feel lacking in authenticity.

The writer should question the wisdom of directing the play herself. Perhaps a fresh pair of eyes could have added valuable perspectives to the drama and injected life into many leaden scenes. As it is, Shelton seems content for the characters to wander on and off stage and merely speak the lines that she has written. At times, her production looks amateurish, doing little justice to the commitment of six accomplished actors.

Shelton lays to rest the theory that a night out at the theatre should provide a contrast to a night in watching television soaps. Blessings is a mix of tired old plot lines. stilted dialogue and clunky staging. The biggest blessing is the shortish running time, which is under 90 minutes without an interval.

Performance date: 2 October 2025