It is Sarah Kane’s turn to get the Tristram Kenton treatment from the Guardian’s archive, and what an impressive array of talent that have understandably flocked to this most challenging of playwrights:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2020/oct/28/blasted-cleansed-best-of-sarah-kane-in-pictures-tristram-kenton
Review: Henry V, Open Air Theatre
“This revolt of thine is like another fall of man”
It would be great to live in a world where gender-blind casting isn’t newsworthy in and of itself but we don’t and so it should be shouted out and celebrated wherever it happens, until the day that it just feels rightly commonplace. What should always be celebrated though is the opportunities being given to some our greatest actors to take on powerful leading roles – the intrigue of Glenda Jackson’s return to the stage, the trifecta of Harriet Walter’s Donmar leads soon to be capped off with Prospero and here at the Open Air Theatre, the glorious Michelle Terry rising to the challenge of Henry V.
Insofar as Robert Hastie’s modern-dress production has a conceit, it’s of a group of actors coming together to put on a play, waiting for Charlotte Cornwell’s Chorus to anoint one of them with the leading role – and it’s hard not to feel a frisson of delight as she bypasses the cocky guy pushing to the front to place the crown on Terry’s head. And from then, it’s a relatively straight-forward production, playing out on the wide expanse of Anna Fleischle’s square of riveted iron, props kept to a minimum, John Ross’ movement coming to the fore in impressionistic battle scenes lit beautifully by Joshua Carr. Continue reading “Review: Henry V, Open Air Theatre”
Review: Pastoral, Soho Theatre
“They got me outside Habitat”
Thomas Eccleshare’s Pastoral came highly recommended to me, having transferred to the Soho Theatre after premiering at HighTide, but I have to say that this bleakly comic take on ecological catastrophe left me rather cold. All rational people know that whatever ever they offer you, [you] don’t feed the plants, but somebody seems to have ignored that and consequently this version of England is being taken over by the countryside. Hunting for an escape, a small group of people take shelter in a house as they struggle to adapt to their new circumstances but it soon becomes clear that Mother Nature is being a bitch tonight.
That said, they’re closer to having a kiki than you might think. Eccleshare invests his characters with a mordant sense of humour from the off, primarily in Anna Calder-Marshall’s excellent Moll who rips through her dislikes with zero regard for political correctness. The arrival of a family unit seems to locate us further in single-room sitcom territory, especially as the tales that everyone tells of their disintegrating world are of unlikely sightings such as wild mushrooms growing in Subway, rabbits in Aldi and a babbling brook complete with herons and kingfishers breaking through outside of Nandos. Continue reading “Review: Pastoral, Soho Theatre”
Review: After Miss Julie, Young Vic
“Don’t confuse my appetite”
It is turning out to be the year of the Julie for me: having already taken in one production of Strindberg’s Miss Julie by the Faction theatre company, I have two others lined up with Maxine Peake at the Royal Exchange in a new version by David Eldridge and Juliette Binoche taking on Martin Crimp’s interpretation at the Barbican to look forward to. But second up was Patrick Marber’s take, After Miss Julie, at the Young Vic’s Maria studio. Marber relocates the three-hander to a Britain dealing with the Labour landslide victory of 1945 to startling effect.
In a world that can taste huge social change on the tip of its tongue, housekeeper Christine makes kidneys on toast for her (almost fiancé) chauffeur John as the rest of the staff party upstairs. He cheekily cracks open a bottle of the finest wine from the cellar and they gossip about the antics of the daughter of the house but when the self-same Miss Julie appears at the top of the stairs, Natalie Dormer in fierce flirtatious form, with her eye set on toying with Kieran Bew’s thoroughly masculine John, the scene is set for a torrid night of sex, gender politics and class warfare. Continue reading “Review: After Miss Julie, Young Vic”
DVD Review: Macbeth
Review: Earthquakes in London, National Theatre
“This room is significantly different because you’re in it”
And boy is it different! The first thing that strikes you as you enter the Cottesloe for Earthquakes in London is not the light jazz elevator music, but the complete reconfiguration of the auditorium inside. An inverted S-shaped catwalk-stage dominates, with bar stools either side for the audience, two raised letterbox stages at either end and a DJ in the corner.
A new play from the pen of Mike Bartlett (he of Cock and also Bull) and a co-production with Rupert Goold’s Headlong company. With a timeline switching around from 1968 to 2525 (though predominantly in the present day), it deals with the threat of climate change and impending planetary collapse by looking at the impact on a family of three sisters each with their own issues and the same estranged father. Continue reading “Review: Earthquakes in London, National Theatre”