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News: National Theatre adds five new productions to streaming platform National Theatre at Home

The National Theatre has today announced the latest productions to be made available on its National Theatre at Home streaming platform. Launching today, Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum Dreams, the Young Vic’s A View from the Bridge directed by Ivo van Hove with Mark Strong and Nicola Walker, and Rufus Norris’ production of Everyman with Chiwetel Ejiofor will be available for all audiences worldwide to stream. Danny Boyle’s production of Frankenstein and Sonia Friedman Productions’ Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch will also be available for audiences outside the UK and Ireland. Continue reading “News: National Theatre adds five new productions to streaming platform National Theatre at Home”

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News: NT launches new streaming service National Theatre at Home

The National Theatre, in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, has today launched  National Theatre at Home, a brand-new streaming platform making their much-loved productions available online to watch anytime, anywhere worldwide.

Launching today with productions including the first ever National Theatre Live, Phèdre with Helen Mirren,  Othello  with Adrian Lester and the Young Vic’s Yerma with Billie Piper, new titles from the NT’s unrivalled catalogue of filmed theatre will be added to the platform every month.

In addition to productions previously broadcast to cinemas by National Theatre Live, a selection of plays filmed for the NT’s Archive will be released online for the first time through National Theatre at Home, including Lucy Kirkwood’s Mosquitoes with Olivia Colman and Inua Ellams’ new version of Chekhov’s Three Sisters (a co-production with Fuel).   Continue reading “News: NT launches new streaming service National Theatre at Home”

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Re-review: Mary Poppins, Prince Edward Theatre

So good I went twice in as many weeks! I rave about Mary Poppins as it delights the West End at the Prince Edward Theatre

“I suffer no nonsense and whilst I remain
There’s nothing else I feel I need to explain”

So good I went twice in as many weeks! When the opportunity presented itself to go back to Mary Poppins, I couldn’t help myself. So why not take a read of my five star review for Official Theatre here. And if you’re that way inclined, you can read my other review here.

Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes (with interval)
Photos: Johan Persson
Mary Poppins is booking at the Prince Edward Theatre until 3rd May

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Review: Mary Poppins, Prince Edward Theatre

Someone clearly has too much time on their hands…enjoy the wordplay in this review of this spectcular revival of Mary Poppins at the Prince Edward Theatre

“Um-dittle-ittl-um-dittle-I
Um-dittle-ittl-um-dittle-I”

Strallens to the fore,
umbrellas at the ready,
penguins…well we won’t mention them. Making its return to the Prince
Edward Theatre where it debuted in 2004, this
revival of
classic musical Mary Poppins
arrives at just the right time to
lift our spirits as the nights start to draw
in and politicians spout
falsehood after falsehood to further darken our nights. And there’s a
rollicking good time to be had here
as the show recalls the
good old days of easy-going entertainment.
In the
leading role, Zizi Strallen
is a constant delight as the
stern nanny with just the right amount of
twinkle in her eye as she alights upon the Banks’ household. Vocally, she
is impressive too, whether rebuffing
Charlie Stemp’s charmingly flirtatious Bert whose
enormous perma-grin may or may not be the result of
xanax
pills.
In the roles of the domestic staff, Claire Machin
and Jack North get many a
laugh and
if George Banks isn’t the  
dad of your dreams, Joseph Millson pretty much is.
Obviously
children play a big part
in this world and the pair
of tykes I saw this evening were
unusually
sweet and sour as their characters are much naughtier than the film. Continue reading “Review: Mary Poppins, Prince Edward Theatre”

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Review: The Twilight Zone, Almeida Theatre

“We’re not looking for a needle in a haystack but for an alien in a diner”

There’s a scene in the second half of The Twilight Zone which is almost unbearably, poignantly astute on the subject of race relations in the US. Never mind that it was written in the 60s, it says so much about the America of today that it can’t help but chill the bone about the predictability of the baser notes of human nature. It is though, the only moment in this theatrical adaptation of the classic TV show that registered any real impact with me.

Anne Washburn (she of the extraordinary Mr Burns) has fashioned this play out of eight of the stories told by The Twilight Zone and presents them as if shuffling a pack of cards. Some stories broken up and interwoven with each other, some told in toto, all seeking to disrupt and disturb with shocks and scares and no little amount of wry humour too. It makes for a strangely suitable piece of counter-intuitive festive programming but ultimately felt insubstantial to me.  Continue reading “Review: The Twilight Zone, Almeida Theatre”

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Cast for the Almeida’s Twilight Zone announced

 
The Almeida have revealed the cast for their forthcoming Christmas show The Twilight Zone which promises a different take on seasonal fare! Directed by Richard Jones and adapted by Anne Washburn, responsible for the brilliant mindfuck that was Mr Burns, I reckon this will be one to look out for.

Cast includes: Oliver Alvin-Wilson, Franc Ashman, Adrianna Bertola, Lizzy Connolly, Amy Griffiths, Neil Haigh, Cosmo Jarvis, John Marquez, Matthew Needham, and Sam Swainsbury,

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Review: Once In A Lifetime, Young Vic

“You don’t know anything about anything, George, and if what they say about the movies is true, you’ll go far”

The end of the silent movie era and the arrival of the talkies has proved fertile ground for many a storyteller, not least Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s immortal Singin’ in the Rain, but Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s Once In A Lifetime has a serious claim to being one of the first, premiering as it did in 1930 and its influence is plain to see. It has received major revivals from Trevor Nunn at the RSC (1979) and Edward Hall at the National (2005) and now it is the turn of Richard Jones at the Young Vic, in a production notable for marking the theatrical stage debut of Harry Enfield.

In a new adaptation by Hart’s son Christopher, Once In A Lifetime follows the trials and tribulations of three workaday vaudeville artists from New York who decide to throw in their lot and ship out to Hollywood. With the first ever talking motion picture doing great business, they opt to capitalise on the trend by opening an elocution school to help all those actors who suddenly need to speak on screen but even in its earliest days, the crowded corridors of Tinseltown prove a tough nut to crack with any number of wannabe starlets, studio heads and screenwriters competing for the limelight. Continue reading “Review: Once In A Lifetime, Young Vic”

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Album Review: Stephen Ward (2013 Original Cast Recording)

“Part of me is saying I should go”

Like many others, I imagine, I did not leave Stephen Ward thinking I particularly want to hear this score by Andrew Lloyd Webber again anytime soon and so three years later, this is the first time I’ve revisited this musical. And as the strange melody of opening number ‘Human Sacrifice’ started, I began to wonder if I’d been overly harsh, Alexander Hanson’s story-telling experience imbuing this prologue of sorts with real interest and setting me up for a potential reimagining of my opinion.

But then track number 2 ‘Super Duper Hula Hooper’ kicks in, that title makes me die a little inside every time I hear it, and you soon begin to realise why the show barely managed 4 months in the West End. Lloyd Webber may have been a teenager in the 60s but he’s looking back at them like a man in his sixties, the air of rose-tinted corrective lenses and musical tweeness proving fatal to conjuring any kind of authentic sense of the period. Continue reading “Album Review: Stephen Ward (2013 Original Cast Recording)”

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Review: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, West Yorkshire Playhouse

“Scrumptious as the breeze across the day”

Who knew that Leeds would be a musical theatre hotspot this December but between The Girls and this Music & Lyrics and West Yorkshire Playhouse production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, it’s been the place to be for big, warm-hearted musical fun. This is the first new version of Chitty Chitty… since its original 2002 West End production and its many regional tours but in James Brining’s clever and wondrous adaptation, it’s thoroughly revitalised and as lovely as any cherry peach parfait.

Ian Fleming’s novel was adapted by Jeremy Sams, via Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes’ own reshaping of the story for the cinema, and with a glorious score from the Sherman Brothers (as if they could do any other kind) beefed up with new songs by them as well, it captures much of the Disney noir feel of the film whilst bringing its own depths too. I’d forgotten how much sadness there was in the tale and that’s something Brining never lets us forget, even whilst delighting us with flying cars and fun. Continue reading “Review: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, West Yorkshire Playhouse”