Don't bother, they're here
It is Sarah Kane’s turn to get the Tristram Kenton treatment from the Guardian’s archive, and what an impressive array of talent that have understandably flocked to this most challenging of playwrights:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2020/oct/28/blasted-cleansed-best-of-sarah-kane-in-pictures-tristram-kenton
“I want my team to know why I acted the way I did”
The introduction of series-long plots didn’t necessarily work first time round for Spooks but in Series 7, the magic certainly happens to produce one of the best seasons across its decade-long life. Perhaps the reduced episode order from 10 to 8 helped to refine the effectiveness of the storytelling, recognising that it was Adam’s time to go definitely worked and finally made the right kind of room for Ros to rise, and giving Gemma Jones this material was an absolute masterstroke.
Undoing the silly fakeouts of Ros and Jo’s ‘deaths’ right from the off, the introduction of Richard Armitage’s Lucas North also works well, his time in Russian captivity casting a nice shade of doubt over his presence in the team, a marked difference to the alpha males of Tom and Adam. And the ongoing Sugarhorse mystery is skillfully wound throughout the whole season, coiling ever-tighter until the hammer blows of a properly fierce finale.
Nicola Walker-ometer
She’s just a distant memory at this point – Harry really is such a fuckboy. Continue reading “Lockdown TV Review: Spooks Series 7”
“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)”
“When we’re hungry, we go to sleep”
A time when the much-abused sobriquet state-of-the-nation is actually entirely appropriate, Alexander Zeldin completes his excoriating triptych of plays about modern Britain with Faith, Hope and Charity. Beyond Caring looked at zero hour contracts and Love homeless hostels, Zeldin now turns his focus onto community centres and their role in holding society together.
As before, there’s little that is inherently ‘dramatic’ in Zeldin’s play, rather scenes are episodic and lean heavily into naturalism – silences as tables are put off, dialogue that interrupts and tails off but rather than feeling empty or clumsy, the cumulative effect is one of deep rumination. And such is Zeldin’s skill, you can’t help but ponder the state of the nation from the seemingly smallest of incidental details as presented here. Continue reading “Review: Faith, Hope and Charity, National Theatre”
Olivier Theatre
Following a sell-out run at Rose Theatre Kingston, the acclaimed two-part adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s MY BRILLIANT FRIEND by April De Angelis is reworked for the Olivier stage by Melly Still (Coram Boy). When the most important person in her life goes missing without a trace, Lenu Greco, now a celebrated author, begins to recall a relationship of more than 60 years. Continue reading “News: the National Theatre announces 15 new productions for 2019 and 2020”
“Just make them shag each other and sell all the littluns to rich people who want pets of something”
There’s something unremittingly bleak about Simon Longman’s Gundog that makes it a real challenge. It’s an impressively bold depiction of the complete decline of a way of life, the kind of rural farming that the Common Agricultural Policy hasn’t managed to reach and protect. None of the loneliness or impoverished desperation is spared in what can feel a tad like punishment by the end.
After the death of their parents, and with their grandfather’s illness and their brother’s listlessness, sisters Anna and Becky find themselves landed with the thankless task of looking after the remotest of farms in an area that can’t even sustain a local pub. The arrival of a foreigner with a nifty line in knitwear is a rare harkening of the potential of change but we’re never allowed to forget that times really are tough. Continue reading “Review: Gundog, Royal Court”
| Winner | Runner-up | Other nominees | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best Actress in a Play | Juliet Stevenson/Lia Williams, Mary Stuart | Uzo Aduba/Zawe Ashton, The Maids | Gemma Arterton Nell Gwynn, Linda Bassett, Escaped Alone Helen McCrory, The Deep Blue Sea Maxine Peake, A Streetcar Named Desire Harriet Walter, The Tempest |
| Best Actor in a Play | O-T Fagbenle, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom | Lucian Msamati, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom | Phil Dunster, Pink Mist Paapa Essiedu, Hamlet Rhys Isaac-Jones, Jess and Joe Forever Lucian Msamati, Amadeus Danny Sapani, Les Blancs |
| Best Supporting Actress in a Play | Jade Anouka, The Tempest | Lizzy Connolly/Amanda Lawrence, Once in a Lifetime | Nadine Marshall, Father Comes Home From The War (Parts 1, 2, and 3) Tanya Moodie, Hamlet Siân Phillips, Les Blancs Rachael Stirling, The Winter's Tale Susan Wokoma, A Raisin In The Sun |
| Best Supporting Actor in a Play | Peter Polycarpou, Scenes from 68* Years | Anthony Boyle, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child | Rudi Dharmalingham, Mary Stuart Dex Lee, Father Comes Home From The War (Parts 1, 2, and 3) Nick Fletcher, The Deep Blue Sea Jonjo O'Neill, Unreachable Alan Williams, Mary Stuart |
| Best Actress in a Musical | Jenna Russell, Grey Gardens | Clare Burt, Flowers for Mrs Harris | Samantha Barks, The Last 5 Years Glenn Close, Sunset Boulevard Kaisa Hammarlund, Sweet Charity Cassidy Janson, Beautiful Landi Oshinowo, I'm Getting My Act Together... |
| Best Actor in a Musical | Louis Maskell, The Grinning Man | Ako Mitchell, Ragtime | Declan Bennett, Jesus Christ Superstar Dex Lee, Grease Hugh Maynard, Sweeney Todd Charlie Stemp, Half A Sixpence Mark Umbers, She Loves Me |
| Best Supporting Actress in a Musical | Jennifer Saayeng, Ragtime | Victoria Hamilton-Barritt, Murder Ballad | Josie Benson, Sweet Charity Sheila Hancock, Grey Gardens Rachel John, The Bodyguard Katherine Kingsley, She Loves Me Gloria Onitiri, The Grinning Man |
| Best Supporting Actor in a Musical | Julian Bleach, The Grinning Man | Tyrone Huntley, Jesus Christ Superstar | Adam J Bernard, Dreamgirls Daniel Crossley, Sweet Charity Stuart Neal, The Grinning Man Dominic Tighe, She Loves Me Gary Tushaw, Ragtime |
Best Supporting Actor in a Play
Peter Polycarpou, Scenes from 68* Years
In the midst of a heartbreaking play (by Hannah Khalil), Polycarpou’s contributions to the multi-stranded narrative were more heartbreaking than most – agonisingly, beautifully evoking the Palestinian struggle in the most heartfelt way.
Honourable mention: Anthony Boyle, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
We may be being urged to #keepthesecrets, but there’s no mystery that Boyle has been the breakout star of Cursed Child as Scorpius Malfoy, especially when the homoerotic undertones are more like overtones in the first part.
Rudi Dharmalingam, Mary Stuart
Dex Lee, Father Comes Home From The War (Parts 1, 2, and 3)
Nick Fletcher, The Deep Blue Sea
Jonjo O’Neill, Unreachable
Alan Williams, Mary Stuart
8-10
Robert Hazle, Home Chat; Tobias Menzies, Uncle Vanya; Paul Thornley, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Best Supporting Actor in a Musical
Julian Bleach, The Grinning Man
As the Machiavellian manservant Barkilphedro, Bleach was deliciously arch throughout this captivating show and as his grasping ambitions brought him to the centre of the action, it was hard not to be slightly seduced by his awfulness.
Honourable mention: Tyrone Huntley, Jesus Christ Superstar
In an extraordinarily good company revitalising Lloyd Webber, Huntley was a stellar presence alongside Declan Bennett’s Jesus, a real thorn in his side. But now he’s firmly ensconced in Dreamgirls, will he be joining the shows return to the Open Air next summer?
Adam J Bernard, Dreamgirls
Daniel Crossley, Sweet Charity
Stuart Neal, The Grinning Man
Dominic Tighe, She Loves Me
Gary Tushaw, Ragtime
8-10
Peter Caulfield, Jesus Christ Superstar; Michael Esper, Lazarus; Thomas Howes, The Wind in the Willows
“To do nothing is the hardest job of all”
It’s taken a little time to getting round to watching all of The Crown because, in a first for me, I found it impossible to binge-watch the show. Even with Netflix kindly providing offline downloads just at the point where I had a lot of travelling to do, Peter Morgan’s drama was lots of fun to watch but rarely captured the buzzy energy that has accompanied much online programming. Because it many ways it isn’t like much of Netflix’s previous output, it really is an encroachment into BBC Sunday night and as such, I felt it worked best spread out in almost weekly installments.
That’s partly down to the nature of the subject material, we’re not likely to get many surprises in a detailed retelling of the history of the House of Windsor. But it is also due to Morgan’s writing which tends a little to the formulaic, especially in the middle part of the series, which is when my interest was most in danger of waning. The opening two episodes started brightly but once the shock of becoming monarch was over, the rhythm became very much one of someone close to the queen has an issue and she has to weigh personal desires against public duty, the latter always winning out. Continue reading “TV Review: The Crown, Series 1”
“The Queen? Which Queen?”
Robert Icke’s Mary Stuart is a towering success, an extraordinary piece of theatre that surely ranks amongst the year’s best, no mean feat considering his Oresteia, also for the Almeida, did the same thing last. There’s added spice here too since leading players Lia Williams and Juliet Stevenson do not know which of Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots they will be playing until the beginning of the performance when it is decided with a coin toss. And so too, dear reader, must you decide…
