Don't bother, they're here
Tristram Kenton’s latest deep dive into his archive revisits productions that took place in non-traditional spaces, from palaces and cathedrals to high streets and ice rinks.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2020/dec/09/theatre-everywhere-but-on-stage-in-pictures
Clearly, the first before-they-were-famous photo montage was a click-winner for the Guardian as they’ve gone back into Tristram Kenton’s archive for a second dip of notable actors earlier in their careers:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2020/nov/13/stars-before-they-were-famous-in-pictures-rachel-weisz-damian-lewis-daniel-kaluuya
One of the joys of seeing so much theatre in London is that sense of seeing any number of actors at the beginning of their careers and Tristram Kenton has been doing that for years now. Here’s just some of those big names as whippersnappers on the British stage:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2020/nov/11/before-they-were-famous-stars-tristram-kenton-at-the-guardian-in-pictures
I’m loving this deep dive that the Guardian is doing into Tristram Kenton’s archive, this time taking a turn into the many Open Air Theatre productions he has been witness to. Highly recommended:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2020/aug/19/great-outdoors-the-magic-of-regents-park-open-air-theatre-in-pictures
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 nominations for the 2018 awards, the results of which will be revealed at a ceremony on Sunday 14th October. Continue reading “Nominations for the 2018 UK Theatre Awards”
“You will not like me”
There’s probably a German word for a play that opens with a self-fulfilling prophecy such as the one above, but even I wasn’t expecting how true it would be for The Libertine. Moving into the Theatre Royal Haymarket after a run in Bath, I haven’t been this bored by a play in quite some time. From Stephen Jeffrey’s writing to Terry Johnson’s direction to Dominic Cooper’s lead performance, I found it all all just fearfully dull.
“I should imagine perspective plays a part”
Geraldine Alexander’s last stage outing in The Empty Quarter was pretty astoundingly good so I was intrigued to see how her debut as a playwright would turn out in Amygdala, tucked away in a found space at The Print Room. Hermione Gulliford plays Catherine, a successful lawyer with a busy family life who finds herself unravelling when a chance encounter on a bus leads to a heady affair with a handsome young man, Alex Lanipekun’s Joshua, but one with terrible consequences.
In the aftermath, Jasper Britton’s psychiatrist Simon is charged with trying to fix the emotional wreckage, the damage done to the ‘amygdala’ – the part of the brain where emotion and memory reside – but in delving into her psyche, he unwittingly stirs part of his own. It is a simply drawn play – although one full of densely complex thoughts and writing – but one in which both of Catherine’s key relationships feel curiously unrealistic – the therapist’s couch unleashes a high degree of unprofessionalism and the affair feels a little convenient. Continue reading “Review: Amygdala, Print Room Balcony”
“What can you say to a black man on the subject of race?”
The Bee Gees once sang ‘it’s only words’ and that was my abiding sentiment as I left the Hampstead Theatre after seeing David Mamet’s Race. Circumstance conspired to prevent me from seeing this on the press night and I allowed myself to be convinced to try again to see it, but it was one of those instances where fate should have been allowed to play out. Even over its short running time, Race rarely feels like a piece of coherent drama spoken by fully-fleshed characters but rather a collection of ideas strung together and placed into mouthpieces.
Its subject is right there in the title, centred on the debate in a lawyer’s office about whether to take on a politically charged case of alleged rape involving a (presciently Strauss-Kahn-like) powerful man. The case is deemed problematic by the defendant being a black woman, the accused a white man, and it is further complicated by the inter-racial dynamics of this law firm. Throw in some gender politics and the rich/poor divide and the scene is set for some coruscating debate on some eternally pressing issues, but Mamet fudges it completely. Continue reading “Review: Race, Hampstead Theatre”
BEST MALE PERFORMANCE
Jasper Britton in Mother Adam at Jermyn Street
Louis Maskell in The Fix at Union Theatre
Thomas Coombes in Barbarians at Tooting Arts Club
William Houston in Uncle Vanya at The Print Room
BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE
Aysha Kala in Khadija is 18 at Finborough Theatre
Eileen Atkins in All That Fall at Jermyn Street
Lucy Ellinson in Oh, The Humanity at Soho Theatre
Matti Houghton in Brimstone and Treacle at Arcola Theatre
BEST NEW PLAY
Lot and his God by Howard Barker at The Print Room
Lungs by Duncan Macmillan by Paines Plough (Shoreditch Town Hall)
Shivered by Philip Ridley at Southwark Playhouse Continue reading “2013 Offie Award Finalists”
“Let me offer you a different story”
Any film that contains someone being dragged to the theatre saying “there won’t be puppets will there?” is bound to be a winner with me. And if that film has also courted controversy then my interest is bound to be piqued. But the publicity campaign against Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous was so vociferous that it disappeared from cinemas before I got the chance to see it and so I had to wait for it to emerge on DVD. Why so controversial? Emmerich’s (better known for loud blockbusters like Independence Day, Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow) film is based on the premise that the 17th Earl of Oxford Edward de Vere was in fact the true author of the works normally attributed to Shakespeare. Thus a great outcry was launched, by the people and scholars for whom this is the biggest deal, and the film largely scuppered.
Which ultimately is a shame, as I found it to be rather an enjoyable film and somewhat perversely, the authorship question is just one of many strands of story in what turns out to be a historical political thriller, mainly based around the succession to the throne as Elizabeth I’s reign has produced no (legitimate) heirs. That one of the key players in her court just happens to be a playwright on the sly, who is forced to use a surrogate by the name of William to get his plays staged, is taken as a given here and it makes for an entertaining ‘what if’ scenario. Continue reading “DVD Review: Anonymous”