The Beast's Pen

James Fritz’ new one-act play unfolds like a detective story, making it difficult to elaborate too much on the plot details. Suffice to say that the title relates to the duration of an intimate film clip involving two teenagers, which goes viral on social networks. The pair themselves are almost incidental to the story – 17-year-old Jack never appears and his (now ex) girlfriend Cara (Ria Zmitrowsicz) turns up in just a few short scenes. This is a play about the dilemmas of parenting in the age of the internet, focussing on Jack’s pushy mother Di (Kate Maravan) and his “boys will be boys” father David (Jonathan McGuinness). Fritz examines clashes between family devotion, social responsibility and ethics in the role of parenting, whilst throwing in a discussion on the dividing line between consensual sex and rape. The play is structured as a succession of short scenes, all involving no more than two characters (predominantly Di and David) and Anna Ledwich’s stripped down production, with the audience seated on either side of an oblong stage, always holds the attention. Two very strong central performances from Maravan and McGuinness also help to keep us gripped, but the characters’ words and deeds stretch the boundaries of credibility and lead us to question whether the play’s whole central premise is fundamentally flawed. Worse still, as the plot becomes progressively less believable in the later stages, so do the characters, leaving us not really caring too much for them or about them. As a result, this play is always interesting, but rarely moving.

Performance date: 6 October 2014

In 2004, I paid my first visit to the newly-opened Menier Chocolate and fell in love with the place instantly. Even before The Shard towered above it in the near distance and Borough Market had undergone its makeover, something magical had descended upon what had been a dreary and neglected area of London. That first production was Fully Committed, a small-scale, one-man play which gave few clues as to the treasures that were to follow.  Glossing over the ghastly Paradise Found, the Menier has effectively re-defined musical theatre for London, scaling down big shows, many by Stephen Sondheim, to fit into a studio setting. This revival is a happy reminder of that first visit. The play’s only character is Sam, a resting actor who operates the telephones and takes the bookings for a chic, in-demand New York restaurant. Written by Becky Mode and directed by Mark Setlock, who was Sam in the first production here, the play is a frantic hour of non-stop comedy in which Sam speaks not only as himself but also as the voices at the other end of the phones – diners desperately seeking reservations, the ogreish chef, the maitre d’hôte, his own father, his agent, a fellow actor gloating that he has got a part, etc. With no computers in sight, Sam takes all the reservations by hand, thereby making the play look at least ten years out of date, but, otherwise it is as fresh as when it first appeared. Here, Sam is played by the British actor/comedian Kevin Bishop who gives a virtuoso display of voice mimicry and facial contortions, taking us through the piece at breakneck speed; he also brings to the character a quality of real likability which draws us in and makes us root for him as he juggles the priorities of making bucks, furthering his acting career and staying close to his family. Highly entertaining.

photo: Catherine Ashworth

Performance date: 3 October 2014

Did you know that William Shakespeare once lived in Shoreditch? He did and, to commemorate the fact, RIFT is presenting two cycles of new short plays, performed at various locations during a walking tour of the borough. On a chilly but dry evening, I saw the cycle of five plays (rather four and a film) on The Hoxton Path. The works reflect an area in which traditional London is meeting modern London, where jellied eel stores and sushi bars trade side-by-side and where social housing estates stand proud, resisting the creeping onset of gentrification. Three Loose Teeth by Thomas McMullan features three characters and takes place in a side alley. Touching upon marital infidelity, domestic violence and vagrancy, it has an edgy feel, but needs a sharper focus. Disnatured by Sabrina Mahfouz takes place in a small flat and is a monologue by a young woman, damaged by a horrific childhood incident and embittered by social injustice in the old Hoxton; rather than seeking revenge, she has reconciled herself to playing the game and becoming part of the new Hoxton. Beautifully written and acted, this play is a moving study of subdued anger. The Isle is Full of Noises is a short film (shown in an open shed) by James Soldan and Katie Lambert; the supernatural story concerns a vagrant who befriends and assumes the voice of a teenage girl. Shot in bleak urban locations, it is intriguing and creepy. Community Payback by Ali Muriel is performed in a small park by two good-humoured rappers with some audience participation; it is witty and has a twist in the tail which, although not new, works brilliantly here. This little gem is pure fun. Finally, The Best Pies in London by Abi Zakarian takes place in a real pie shop, splattered with blood for the occasion; here a lady who looks as if she is auditioning for the part of Mrs Lovett in Sondheim’s Sweeney, recounts a gory tale centring on the contents of her pies. This play is predictable, but well done. It all adds up to an unusual and entertaining Autumn evening stroll.

Performance date: 4 October 2014

There is something warmly satisfying about seeing a character actor, who has given immeasurable pleasure in quality productions over the years, finally being elevated to name-above-the-title status. Bill Nighy was an example and now Roger Allam has established himself firmly alongside him. Theresa Rebeck’s play is the sort of semi-intellectual froth that American audiences seem to lap up, but Allam stands astride it like a giant. He plays Leonard, a writer, editor and tutor for aspiring novelists. Paid an exorbitant fee, he takes under his wing four young writers and, in between trips to Somalia, fronts a series of seminars, mostly devoted to dumping heaps of destructive criticism all over their efforts. Kate (Charity Wakefield), a Kerouac-hating feminist, acts as hostess in her dad’s large apartment on New York’s Upper West Side (beautifully realised in Lez Brotherston’s set) and she is the first victim of Leonard’s bilious onslaughts. Next up is Douglas (Oliver Hembrough), who uses long words to mask the fact that he is talking complete rubbish; advising him that his work is hollow, Leonard tells him that he will find a lucrative career in Hollywood. He is kinder to the nymphomaniac Izzy (Rebecca Grant), paving the way to bedding her, but has to reserve judgement on the diffident, hotheaded Martin (Bryan Dick) when he refuses to show his work. Allam revels in playing a monster; his world weary demeanour and sardonic delivery are a joy from start to finish, papering over many of the cracks in the script. Rebeck dissects the modern literary world and charts the shifting relationships between her five characters, but inconsistencies in her arguments and her characterisations abound, credibility often becoming stretched. At least once too often, one character reads about half a page of another’s work and declares it to be “a great novel” or some such. It is tempting to suggest that Rebeck could be the real life equivalent of Douglas, except that her target is Broadway rather than Hollywood; and guidance from a Leonard figure could possibly have taught her how to round off a story rather more convincingly than in this play’s clumsy final scene. Nonetheless, her dialogue often crackles, Terry Johnson’s light-touch direction always ensures that we never take things too seriously and Allam spearheads a quintet of sparkling performances. In the end, despite the play’s flaws, this production provides just about as much good light entertainment as anything currently running in London.

Performance date: 2 October 2014

For those of us old enough to remember, the advent of stereophonic sound in the late 1960s was a time of wonder. It seemed a miracle that Paul Simon could sing to us in one ear, whilst, at the same time, Art Garfunkel was singing into the other. This show plays upon the same sense of discovery; we hear voices in the distance, voices closer, voices to our left, right, front and rear and then someone whispers into our ears. The only problem is that the novelty of stereo wore off almost half a century ago. Sitting in complete darkness and wearing headphones, we are firstly told that the seating is being moved to form a circle and we hear the shuffling of chairs. Then the presenter opens a discussion with what he claims to be members of the audience, but that deceit is blown to smithereens in about 30 seconds when it becomes clear that the actor-like voices that we are hearing are, in fact, those of actors. The publicity for this show claims that it “places the audience at the heart of a thrilling attack on their own identity”, but maybe that is as tongue in cheek as a press quote which declares a show, the essence of which is that nothing is visible, to be  “an absolute must see”. The same experience could be achieved by sitting at home and listening to a radio play (hopefully one better than this) with the lights off, which many may feel would have been a more profitable way of spending the evening.

Performance date: 1 October 2014

2014 is turning out to be an unforgettable year for the Old Vic as it moves from one triumph to another. The decision to re-configue the auditorium to in-the-round was inspired, so memo to Messrs Spacey and Warchus: this is a space that London theatre cannot afford to lose. Here, the auditorium becomes a Greek amphitheatre; the stage is set as the forefront of a palace, the imposing doors of which have concealed betrayal and murder. Electra is the female equivalent of Hamlet in the simplest sense, her father, Agamemnon, having been slain and her mother, Clytemnestra, having married his killer. Hamlet is shackled by indecision, Electra by female frailty and she looks to the return of her exiled brother, Orestes to gain the vengeance with which she has become obsessed. Sophocles’ play, here using Frank McGuinness’s lean and lucid translation, is not a tragedy, it is a revenge thriller and director Ian Rickson piles on the tension in every scene, using original music by PJ Harvey to ratchet it up. It never matters that the casting pays little regard to relative ages, because almost every part of the production and every performance is totally mesmerising. Diana Quick is fearsome as Clytemnestra, a woman who, when told that her son is dead, enquires whether there will be anything in it for her. Jack Lowden, a heroic Orestes, could well become regarded as a lucky talisman for leading actresses; in the Almeida’s Ghosts, he played opposite last year’s Olivier award winner and it will be major shock if he does not do the same this year. As Electra, Kristen Scott Thomas is magnificent. Playing very much against type, she appears in a plain robe with hair dishevelled, howling and raging in grief and frustration. She and the chorus of three women turn the stage into a cauldron of hatred, but it is her demonstration of uncontainable joy that is likely to remain longest in the memory – waving her arms, touching, hugging, smelling what she has seen, but still disbelieving what her eyes have told her. The production meanders just a little in the middle, but, at 100 minutes straight through, there is rarely time to draw breath and the final third scales the heights of theatrical magic. Electrafying!

Performance date: 30 September 2014

This review was originally written for The Public Reviews: http://www.thepublicreviews.com

Slithering into town after its success at the last two Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, this spoof of musicals and aeroplane disaster movies is now, geographically at least, only a mile away from its dream destination – the London Palladium. These “previews” are being presented by the show’s creator, Thom (Thom Sellwood), with the aim of persuading audiences of theatre angels to invest in his ambitious project – a spectacular musical about snakes attacking a plane in flight. Budgetary constrictions mean that just two performers, Will (Will Guppy) and Marina (Marina Waters) have to play all the roles and that no live reptiles can be used (phew! what a relief). The whole concept may once have seemed absurd, but, at a time when a musical about lavatories is opening on Shaftesbury Avenue, perhaps it might just work. The show takes non-venomous bites at the two genres that it is satirising, offering a mixture of good jokes and catchy tunes. With titles such as “Flying to Our Dreams”, “This is My Chance” and “All Time High”, lovers of musical theatre will recognise the songs almost before the first notes are struck and also recognise the shows to which sly references are being made. Another musical may have featured a barricade, but not in the first class cabin of a plane. There are undercurrents of tensions between the three on stage, who seem to be involved in some unfathomable love triangle. Thom tactlessly tells Marina that the female lead is intended for Sheridan Smith and that she will be relegated to the chorus. Will has better prospects, because, although the hero will be played by a Samuel L Jackson type, he will be cast as a flight attendant; unfortunately, as that character is gay and Will, obviously and most definitely isn’t, he is also piqued. The important thing about this show is that everyone involved with it seems to be having an enormous amount of fun, which means that we, the potential backers, have fun too. A rattling good 70 minutes.

Performance date: 27 September 2014

It’s Irish, it’s absurdist and it’s on at the National, so it must be something to do with Samuel Beckett, right? Well, just a little. Writer/director Enda Walsh’s latest play is 50% comedy, 50% drama and 100% unfathomable, making it very difficult to believe that it comes from the man who wrote the placid and unerringly logical Once. Two men, known simply as 1 (Cillian Murphy) and 2 (Mikel Murfi), occupy the same space, almost the size of an aircraft hangar, but with household fixtures and fittings around the walls. Crucially, the space has no windows or doors. The men may be brothers, or flatmates or whatever, the space may or may not be located in the town of Ballyturk. A promising start sees them undertaking daily rituals to the accompaniment of ABC’s Look of Love in a beautifully choreographed physical comedy routine that is reminiscent of Morcambe & Wise, who, after all did more than anyone to popularise absurdist comedy. Similar routines, performed to similar 1980s hits crop up throughout, interspersed in the first half with periods of nonsensical dialogue, during which the play sags. The pair’s Oirish banter often sounds as if it has been extracted from a particularly feeble episode of Mrs Brown’s Boys and, about half an hour in, enjoying the play becomes an even bigger challenge than understanding it. The set may be hermetic, but the auditorium has doors and there are a few occasions when there is a strong temptation to use them. However, this is a play of two halves, albeit, with an appropriate lack of logic, one without an interval. The arrival of 3 (Stephen Rea) through a magically disappearing wall, sees a change from comedy to sinister, surreal drama. He could be the Grim Reaper or the long-awaited Godot (perhaps Beckett does make a contribution), who knows? He offers up a karaoke version of the Cahn/Styne classic Time After Time and then delivers a speech of intense, grim beauty. The tone has now changed completely and much of what follows, spoken and visual, has a brutally poetic feel that creates a hypnotic effect. Now, the play works because of its absurdity and not in spite of it and it seems that the only thing that might loosen its grip would be an injection of logic. At this performance, many of the National’s typical grey-haired clientele looked bewildered, but even they would have to acknowledge three superb performances. It all goes to show that you don’t need to understand something to enjoy it, or perhaps to not enjoy it.

Performance date: 26 September 2014

This review was originally written for the Public Reviews: http://www.thepublicreviews.com

Middle class dramatists of the mid 20th Century were swept out of favour by the new wave created by John Osborne and others in the late1950s. However, now, with Noel Coward’s works rarely absent from our stages and with Terence Rattigan having been rehabilitated into mainstream theatre for some time, a fresh look at John Van Druten is long overdue. A well-received London production of London Wall set the ball rolling last year and, here, Anthony Biggs’ revival of Van Druten’s 1934 play is given added significance, because its themes tie in with the current commemorations for World War I. The opening scene takes place in 1934 in the London house of Naomi and her husband. It transpires that she is haunted by the wartime death of her fiancé Richard, a poet, and she has found, in her marriage to an older widower, a life of comfort and ease. They are joined by Leonard, an impassioned pacifist and by Naomi’s spinster sister, Mercia, who is scornful of the couple’s lifestyle, having chosen a path of duty after casting aside her own fiancé for being anti-war and therefore, in her view, pro-German. The play then moves to the sisters’ family home, a country vicarage, for scenes set in 1914 and 1916. Praise must be given here to designer Victoria Johnstone for creating not just one, but two detailed and realistic sets in Jermyn Street’s tiny space. Praise also to Sophie Ward who, as Naomi, handles the transitions between sophisticated, icy socialite and lovestruck, innocent young girl effortlessly. Similarly, Debra Penny (Mercia) convinces equally as a bitterly disillusioned middle-aged woman and as her younger self, making the mistakes that were to scar her life. As personified in the characters of Richard (Gabriel Vick), who dies in combat and Leonard (Max Wilson), who is stricken with tuberculosis, likening warfare and disease provides a recurring theme. Looked at from 80 years on, when the writer’s pacifist warnings have still not been heeded, their naiveté may be viewed with some cynicism. However, what is much more interesting is the way in which Van Druten, perhaps very daringly for the 1930s, chips away at the traditional wartime posturing of the British, questioning the values of patriotism, duty and religious teaching. The sisters’ parents, a clergyman and his wife (Patrick Drury and Alwyne Taylor), staunchly defend all these values, but they are always portrayed as old-fashioned and misguided. We return to the London house and to 1934 for a slightly disappointing final scene. Van Druten rightly shuns sentimentality in tying up loose ends, but he brings in an element of the supernatural which lends the play an unwelcome touch of melodrama. At this point, he repeats the same pacifist messages that we have already heard and then pushes them too hard, a flaw which is accentuated in this production when we are given an unnecessary reminder of what was to happen five years later. Otherwise, this is a solid, very well acted and commendable effort.

Performance date: 25 September 2014

Enigmas of teh internet seem to be preoccupying playwrights this year. Following Privacy at the Donmar and The Nether at this theatre, Tim Price chips in with a further dissertation  on the darker side of a tool that is supposed to illuminate and enhance all our lives. All three plays wrestle with the problem of how freedom of information and freedom of expression can continue unfettered when those freedoms are shared by bullies, perverts, terrorists and many others who would seek to do us harm. Price’s play, based on fact, tells of two teenage boys – Jake (Kevin Guthrie), an agoraphobe from Shetland and Mustapha (Hamza Jeetooa), a geeky misfit from Southwark – are lured into  a world of hackers and trolls, joining a global group that starts by making mischief and ends committing serious crime. Taking an aversion to Tom Cruise (one of Sargon Yelda’s multiple roles), they launch a cyber attack on the Church of Scientology, follow it with similar attacks on banks and multinational corporations, culminating with the FBI and the CIA. Teh internet empowers them and gives meaning to their inadequate lives, but it also divorces the group from the real world and plays havoc with their collective and individual moral compasses. Watching the first half of Hamish Pirie’s production feels a bit like being a bystander at a school playground. Emoticons, avatars and other brightly coloured, mostly inexplicable characters and objects flash before our eyes in a frenzied display of images which attempt to bring to life the spirit of the virtual world. Not getting all of this is probably down to the generation divide, but the impression left is that the dividing line could be as low as age 15 and a glossary of terms and images provided at the theatre door is not much help to those of us who are slightly older. Somewhere amidst the chaos of this vivid and quite elaborate staging there is a story struggling to break through. The second half is much more sedate, gaining in clarity what it loses in energy, but running almost completely out of steam in its later stages. Jake’s summarising speech directly to the audience is a superb piece of writing, but it is an awkward device which is rendered superfluous when it is followed by a sweet postscript in which four words and two smiles (real ones) say it all.

Performance date: 24 September 2014