Posted on

Book review: Time To Act – Simon Annand

Simon Annand’s Time To Act is a beautiful book of photos capturing actors in the minutes before they go on stage

Tackling the constraints of the pandemic in its own way, Simon Annand’s fantastic new book of photos Time To Act has launched a virtual exhibition of some of the photographs which has now been extended to until Christmas. It’s an ingenious way of sharing some of the hundreds of images from the book and should surely whet the appetite for either just buying it now or putting on your list for Santa to collect soon.

Continue reading “Book review: Time To Act – Simon Annand”

Posted on

Review: The Pride, Trafalgar Studios

“What is the point of this stupid, painful life if not to be honest? If not to stand up for what you are in the core of your being?” 

In a bolder step than one might have expected, Jamie Lloyd’s Trafalgar Studios residency has revived Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride, stepping it up from the Royal Court to the West End to provide a welcome dose of thoughtful drama that should appeal to all. In 1958, closeted estate agent Philip is irresistibly drawn to Oliver, a colleague of his wife Sylvia; in 2008, Philip has just left Oliver due to his addiction to anonymous sex and best friend Sylvia is left to pick up the pieces. Kaye Campbell expertly weaves the two timelines together to explore how much and how little things have changed – attitudes towards homosexuality may have liberalised some but it hasn’t provided an instant passport to happiness, relationships are still as messy and complex as they ever were.

It’s a play I have loved for a long time now and so it is hard for me to be objective about it. The earlier sequences are reminiscent of Rattigan at his best, every line weighted with repressed emotion as the men surrender to their illicit (and illegal) attraction. And the modern day story speaks of the struggles of identity in today’s hyper-sexualised culture, at a Pride festival where the only real battle being fought is to get to the front of a long bar queue and where the main threat to happiness appears to be Grindr. In both worlds too, the presence of Sylvia is infinitely moving – in the 50s she’s just as trapped by society’s rules as her gay husband and as the contemporary best friend, she has to fight just as hard to live her own emotional life due to Oliver’s clingy nature.  Continue reading “Review: The Pride, Trafalgar Studios”

Posted on

Review: Charley’s Aunt, Menier Chocolate Factory

“I am not an ordinary woman”

Between balancing requests for reviews and selecting what other plays I want to actually see, it is a rare occasion that I actually attend the theatre as someone else’s guest for a show of their own choosing. But in order to see an old university friend and Dominic Tighe (only one of these was actually sat next to me though), my Sunday afternoon was spent at the Menier Chocolate Factory to see the Victorian farce Charley’s Aunt.

It is little secret that I am no great fan of a farce, though I have been trying my best to being open to having my mind changed, but this isn’t the one to force a reappraisal of the genre. It is what it is, a cross-dressing, slapstick-filled riot of an occasion – revived here by Ian Talbot – which sets its stall out from the very beginning with a character mugging for laughs. Continue reading “Review: Charley’s Aunt, Menier Chocolate Factory”

Posted on

Short film reviews #1

This post was originally meant to be the out-of-office message that went on here before I went on holiday, but time ran away from me as I left myself much too much to do and so it was left unfinished. But I liked it too much to abandon it completely, as my entrée into the world of watching short films was far too much fun to go unmarked. So here is a collection of short videos, many of them featuring familiar faces from the theatre, that should hopefully entertain you as much as they did I. Continue reading “Short film reviews #1”

Posted on

TV Preview: Sinbad

“Are you running to, or from, something?”

I’ve never been to the cinema to watch a TV programme before but there’s always a first time for everything and last Sunday we found ourselves in the midst of hordes of children during a family film funday to preview the new Sky 1 series Sinbad. The most expensive show Sky have ever commissioned in the UK, it was filmed over 9 months in Malta and marks a determined attempt to capture the family-friendly Dr Who/Merlin market from Impossible Pictures, who also produced Primeval.

As you may have deduced from the pictures, my motives were not entirely artistic, as the show also marks the return of one of my favourite actors, Elliot Cowan, to the screen (plus introduces another nice-looking gentleman called Elliot into the bargain). And as I don’t have Sky and will have to wait for the DVDs to come out at the end of the 12 episode run, this seemed like too good an opportunity to miss to catch the first episode and attend the subsequent Q&A session. Continue reading “TV Preview: Sinbad”

Posted on

Review: Entertaining Mr Sloane, Trafalgar Studios

“It’s what is called a dilemma boy, you are on the horns of it”

After a discussion over the weekend about people who have not yet been made Dames and damn well ought to be, Imelda Staunton’s name came up amongst others (Fiona Shaw and Juliet Stevenson being my other choices), but when I had a check on this blog for the delightful Ms Staunton, I saw no mention of her despite being sure I had seen her earlier this year. Eventually I remembered it was Entertaining Mr Sloane at the Trafalgar Studios, way back in February, but somehow I’d neglected to write up the review. As I want this blog to be a full record of my theatregoing, I’m just going to make a few comments about what I remember of it with the help of some notes I made back then.

The play, written by Joe Orton in 1964, is one of the darkest comedies I think I have ever seen. In brief, a landlady and her brother are both overwhelmed with sexual desire when a charismatic young lodger moves into her house. Caught in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as his psychopathic tendencies come to the fore, as the balance of power continually shifts around them in this battle for power and possession. Continue reading “Review: Entertaining Mr Sloane, Trafalgar Studios”