Lauren Crace – There Ought To Be Clowns

“Where are they? I can’t be dealing with this Indian timing”

The second Birmingham Rep show to make its bow in London this month (Rachel De-lahay’s Circles being the first), Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s Khandan (Family) transferred for a short run at the Royal Court upstairs. Bhatti explores the dynamics of a first-generation Sikh family and their various complex ties to the notion of ‘home’, whether the Punjab to which matriarch Jeeto longs to return after emigrating to Birmingham in 1969 or the England in which her children were born.

Roxana Silbert’s production has much to appreciate in it but not really enough to engage and truly enjoy. The play skates over the domestic travails of all concerned but without ever really digging deep into the characters, they remain little more than ciphers. Rez Kempton’s ambitious Pal clearly loves his wife Liz yet her pain at their childlessness, something which Lauren Crace evokes beautifully, is something he brutally ignores. Oddities like these are scattered throughout, driving the plot at the expense of character credibility. Continue reading “Review: Khandan (Family), Royal Court”

“245 women silks ever, out of tens of thousands”

I do love a legal drama and so too does Peter Moffat. I’m forever grateful for him for the Helen McCrory-starring joy that was North Square and I’ve recently caught up with the two series of Criminal Justice that he was responsible for, so it was only natural that I should be a big fan of Silk. But as the time pressures of a busy theatre schedule rarely let go, it wasn’t something I had time to watch live and it was only with its arrival on Netflix that I was able to catch up with it. The show focuses on a single chambers with two leading lights both hoping to be appointed Queen’s Counsel, “taking silk” as it were, and dealing with the pressures of life at the Bar.

Casting Maxine Peake and Rupert Penry-Jones as the rivals Martha Costello and Clive Reader works extremely well – her fierce intelligence and emotional counterbalance being perfectly portrayed by the ever-strong Peake and Penry-Jones making Reader something of an arrogant buffoon yet one with some redeeming qualities as he competes and consoles, seduces and shines his way through life. Over the six episodes, the focus is mainly on Martha and her dilemmas as she finds herself pregnant at a time of huge professional significance, but the series as a whole makes for a modern and exciting version of a legal drama. Continue reading “DVD Review: Silk, Series 1”