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10 of my top moments of the decade

Ever behind the curve, I present 10 of my top moments in a theatre over the last ten years (plus a few bonus extra ones because whittling down this list was hard, and it will probably be different tomorrow anyway!)

© James Bellorini

Extraordinary Public Acts for a National Theatre

The establishment of the Public Acts programme at the National Theatre offered up something sensational in Pericles, an initiative designed to connect grassroot community organisations with major theatres, resulting in a production that swept over 200 non-professional performers onto the stage of the Olivier to create something that moved me more than 99% of professional productions.  A truly joyous and momentous occasion. 

Honourable mention: this year’s musical take on As You Like It proved just as heart-swellingly beautiful over at the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch. Continue reading “10 of my top moments of the decade”

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Film Review: Peterloo (2018)

I wanted to like Mike Leigh’s Peterloo, I really did…

“You must be famished coming all the way from Wigan”

I’ve been a big fan of Mike Leigh’s film work, since discovering it in the last decade or so, and loved his last film Mr Turner. So news of his return to period drama, albeit through his idiosyncratic process, in Peterloo was a plus for me. The reality though is an epic that proved a real slog for me, even boring by the end. Continue reading “Film Review: Peterloo (2018)”

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Review: Abigail’s Party, Opera House Manchester

This touring production of Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party opts for comedy rather than tragicomedy at the Opera House Manchester, losing a little depth in order to find more laughs

“Let’s get pissed”

I spotted at least two people dressed up as Beverly at this matinée of Abigail’s Party at Manchester’s Opera House, a sure sign of cult status for any play. But it also means that their particular version of it can be stuck in aspic, making it difficult for any new interpretation to break through one’s own pre-programmed laugh track, to offer up a new reading of an oh-so-familiar text.

I’m as guilty of this as anyone – for me, ‘Demis Roussos’ is up there with ‘a handbag’ in terms of iconic lines – but Mike Leigh’s play has always struck me as a desperately sad one rather than an out and out comedy. Last year’s production at Hornchurch and the Menier’s 2012 production brought those sour notes but interestingly, Sarah Esdaile’s touring production opts for out and out farce. Continue reading “Review: Abigail’s Party, Opera House Manchester”

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Review: Abigail’s Party / Abi, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch

Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party and Atiha Sen Gupta’s response piece Abi make for a stirring double bill at the Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch

“Of all the decades to stuck in, the 1970s, really?!”

Yes sir, she can boogie. Rights issues may mean that Donna Summer has been replaced with Baccara but as Melanie Gutteridge’s Beverly shimmies around her front room, there’s a beautiful lightness and freedom to her that we never get to see again. For the neighbours are coming round, and her husband’s running late, and she’s no lagers in – the lot of a suburban social-climbing hostess sure ain’t an easy one, but not even she could predict how this evening will turn out.

Mike Leigh’s 1977 play Abigail’s Party is surely to be considered a British classic. And as it is set in Romford, it makes great sense for Douglas Rintoul to stage it at the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch (in co-production with Derby Theatre, Wiltshire Creative and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg). And if there is a slight sense of reverence to this production – there are no great departures from the original – there’s something extremely satisfying in seeing it receive such loving treatment as here.  Continue reading “Review: Abigail’s Party / Abi, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch”

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68th British Academy Film Awards winners

BAFTA Fellowship
Mike Leigh

Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema
BBC Films

Best Film
Boyhood – Richard Linklater and Cathleen Sutherland
Birdman – Alejandro González Iñárritu, John Lesher and James W. Skotchdopole
The Grand Budapest Hotel – Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven M. Rales and Jeremy Dawson
The Imitation Game – Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky and Teddy Schwarzman
The Theory of Everything – Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce and Anthony McCarten Continue reading “68th British Academy Film Awards winners”

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68th British Academy Film Awards nominations

BAFTA Fellowship
Mike Leigh

Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema
BBC Films

Best Film
Birdman – Alejandro González Iñárritu, John Lesher and James W. Skotchdopole
Boyhood – Richard Linklater and Cathleen Sutherland
The Grand Budapest Hotel – Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven M. Rales and Jeremy Dawson
The Imitation Game – Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky and Teddy Schwarzman
The Theory of Everything – Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce and Anthony McCarten Continue reading “68th British Academy Film Awards nominations”

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Review: Abigail’s Party, Curve

“Do you like Demis Roussos?”

There must be a market for a completely immersive version of Abigail’s Party – that said, there’s probably already been one in Edinburgh – but given how close Suba Das’ production brings us to the gin and cheese and pineapple in an ingenious in-the-round staging here, it might actually be too much to bear. Seated around David Woodhead’s brilliantly observed living room set design and the most lurid orange carpet you ever did see, there really is no escape from this most awkward of social occasions – Das dares us not to flinch not only from Abigail’s gaze but from that of the audience members around us whose presence equally cannot be ignored.

The play remains a classic – Natalie Thomas’ neurotic party host Beverly nails a voice that could crack glass and works in a satisfying amount of vulnerability in with the viciousness with which she flails as the party spirals out of control. Patrick Moy as her tense husband Laurence builds powerfully as his patience and small talk is worn increasingly thin and resentment finally explodes. Cary Crankson and Emily Head’s new neighbours are just as excruciatingly entertaining to watch – Crankson in particular standing out, rounding off a marvellously prolific year – and Jackie Morrison’s Sue completes the cast in gormless wonder. Continue reading “Review: Abigail’s Party, Curve”

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Film Review: Mr Turner (2014)

“There’s no room for cynicism in the reviewing of art”

One might equally say there’s no room for cynicism in my reviewing of Mike Leigh’s work, such a fan of his oeuvre am I and the laidback, gruff charms of Mr Turner are no exception, confirming the iconic director in the full flush of his prime. Timothy Spall has already been deservedly rewarded for his wonderfully harrumphing performance of the last 10 years of the life of this most famous of painters and it is a compelling portrait, of a man established in his world as a bachelor, a master painter, and later a lover. Leigh’s episodic style fits perfectly into this biographical mode, dipping in and out of his life with the precision of one of Turner’s paintbrushes, colouring in a captivating collage of his later life.

Spall is excellent but around him, the women in his life provide some of the most hauntingly beautiful moments of the film. As Sarah Danby, the mistress and mother of the two daughters he would not recognise, Ruth Sheen is piercingly vivid, her barely contained fury resonating deeply. As Hannah Danby, her niece who was Turner’s long-suffering and long-serving housekeeper, Dorothy Atkinson is painfully brilliant as a woman subjugated and subdued by his wanton sexual advances, the psoriasis that afflicted her, and her deep love for the man. As “self-taught Scotswoman” and scientist Mary Somerville, Lesley Manville near steals the film in a simply beautiful self-contained vignette. Continue reading “Film Review: Mr Turner (2014)”