Posted on

TV Review: Unforgotten, Series 4

Don’t read on if you haven’t finished Series 4 of Unforgotten for major spoilers are within 

“We are who we are – I don’t think you can ever really change that”

It’s a good job that Series 4 of Unforgotten aired as spring arrives in the air and the promise of easements is finally taking some of the sting out of lockdown life. For had it been on in the endless depths of the last few dark months, I don’t think I could have coped. Indeed, I’m not sure I can still really cope now even with it being 23 degrees outside.

They killed Nicola Walker! Again! I’ve barely recovered from how they did Ruth dirty, but given the way that episode 5 ended and the way people were talking at the beginning of episode 6, the writing was on the wall. And so as Sunny finally cracked the case and unwound the puzzle of Matthew Walsh’s death and the four young police officers intimately involved with it, DCI Cassie Stuart breathed her last. Continue reading “TV Review: Unforgotten, Series 4”

Posted on

June theatre round-up

I might have taken a break from reviewing in June, but I didn’t stop going to the theatre – I had too many things already booked in. Here’s some brief thoughts on what I saw.

Betrayal, Harold Pinter
Shit-Faced Shakespeare – Hamlet, Barbican
The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Cheek By Jowl at the Barbican
Somnium, Sadler’s Wells
Les Damnés, Comédie-Française at the Barbican
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Theatre Royal Bath
Blithe Spirit, Theatre Royal Bath
The Hunt, Almeida
Present Laughter, Old Vic
Europe, Donmar Warehouse
The Deep Blue Sea, Minerva
Plenty, Chichester Festival Theatre
Pictures of Dorian Gray, Jermyn Street
The Light in the Piazza, Royal Festival Hall
J’Ouvert, Theatre503
Hair of the Dog, Tristan Bates Continue reading “June theatre round-up”

Posted on

Full list of 2018 UK Theatre Awards winners

The UK Theatre Awards are the only nationwide Awards to honour and celebrate outstanding achievements in regional theatre throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and they have just announced the winners for the 2018 awards, which include a well-deserved Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre for Maxine Peake – take a look at her acceptance speech here. 

Continue reading “Full list of 2018 UK Theatre Awards winners”

Posted on

Review: Machinal, Almeida Theatre

Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 expressionist play Machinal receives an extraordinary production from Natalie Abrahami at the Almeida Theate

“Your skin oughtn’t to curl – ought it – when he just comes near you- ought it? That’s wrong, ain’t it? You don’t get over that, do you – ever, do you or do you?”

Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 play Machinal may be the story of one woman battling societal pressure but Natalie Abrahami’s production for the Almeida Theatre teases out a more elemental struggle, one which stretches over the majority of the twentieth century and by extension, even further.

The story is rooted in its ordinariness. Emily Berrington’s Young Woman gets by at a job she doesn’t like, marries the first guy who shows an interest, gives birth to a child she scarcely wants – expectations check check checked. But as she learns that she wants more, can want more, the weight of societal pressure comes to bear. Continue reading “Review: Machinal, Almeida Theatre”

Posted on

Review: Winter Hill, Octagon Theatre

“Heroism is danger and risk, and frankly, until now, it’s been male”

Plays set in places I knew well as a child unexpectedly looks like it might be one of the theatrical memes of the year – Years of Sunlight explored the history of the neighbouring town where I learned to swim and now we have Timberlake Wertenbaker’s new drama Winter Hill, named for the West Pennine peak that was the location of many a childhood walk. 

Wertenbaker’s play is set on the Winter Hill of the near future, as opposed to the not-so-near past, where a chunk of the land has been sold to developers who are constructing a luxury skyscraper hotel there, set to completely alter the way that the hill dominates the landscape and the town of Bolton below it. As a local women’s reading group sneaks onto the building site to have their meetings, hidden agendas bubble to the surface to make matters a little more serious than whether they’ve got enough wine to get through the evening. Continue reading “Review: Winter Hill, Octagon Theatre”

Posted on

DVD Review: Small Island

“This island is too small if you have big dreams”

Andrea Levy’s 2004 novel Small Island was inescapable at the time, it seemed like everyone I knew had read and loved it but though it went on to win prizes, I wasn’t as big a fan of most of it. That said, I did love much of this television adaptation in 2009 which came just after Ruth Wilson’s superlative turn in the Donmar’s A Streetcar Named Desire as I began to realise how special an actress she really was. The story focuses on the experiences of two women – Queenie Bligh and Hortense Roberts – as the economic and social impact of World War Two ripples out through London and Jamaica.

Naomie Harris’ Hortense is a young Jamaican woman with heady dreams of becoming a teacher in what she sees as the idyllic land of England yet is devastated to find the gloominess of reality, alleviated only once she meets a man called Gilbert; and Ruth Wilson’s Queenie is a working class Yorkshirewoman who moves to London to escape the family farm but with little real prospects. When her job falls through, she accepts the marriage proposal of the attentive Bernard Bligh – Benedict Cumberbatch in full-on English mode – to avoid having to move back but when he leaves for WWII, huge changes are set in motion for all concerned. Continue reading “DVD Review: Small Island”

Posted on

Review: Pack, Finborough Theatre

“The cards you’re holding? You need to establish what they’re worth”

The Papatango New Writing Festival came up with an absolute cracker in Dawn King’s Foxfinder which sold out the Finborough last winter, so it is fair to say that expectations for this year’s winner – Louise Monaghan’s Pack – are fairly high. It is an entirely different beast though and one which seems eerily well-timed as the events around the recent Rotherham by-election played out, as this is an unflinchingly raw take on racism in a different part of Yorkshire and how it has permeated our society in ways which don’t always readily manifest themselves.

Monaghan’s framing device is a bridge class at a community centre which brings working class mothers Stephie and Deb under the tutelage of Dianna, a maths teacher at the nearby high school, and they are joined by local GP Nasreen to make up the quartet. They’re a diverse group and throughout the smattering of techniques that we see them learn for this card game, the real interest comes in the tentative common ground that they find in the snippets of conversation inbetween. They discuss the husbands that they tolerate, the ageing parents that they care for, the children that they are trying to nurture, but against the febrile atmosphere of a looming British National Party rally, their lives become inextricably entangled with each other. Continue reading “Review: Pack, Finborough Theatre”

Posted on

Review: Sister Act the Musical, New Wimbledon Theatre

“When I was still a school girl, standing just about yay high, I saw the face of Jesus in a coconut cream pie.”

I have to admit to being a little sceptical when I first heard that Sister Act the Musical would be touring the UK. Its run in the West End was relatively well-received (not least by me, twice) but the show itself lacked a certain something to match up to the star quality of its cast, so I was pleased to hear both that this touring production was a reworked version and some excellent word-of-mouth in advance of its arrival at the New Wimbledon.

And it was good word indeed as I really enjoyed the show third time around. An adaptation of the film of the same name in which Delores van Cartier, a nightclub singer, has to enter a witness protection programme which places her in a threatened Philadelphia convent much to her chagrin. But disguised as Sister Mary Clarence and appointed to the head of the dodgy choir which she soon whips into shape, she effects remarkable change on those around her which in turn raises their profile, jeopardising the whole undercover operation and everyone’s safety on the very day the Pope is coming to hear them sing. Continue reading “Review: Sister Act the Musical, New Wimbledon Theatre”