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TV Review: Kiri

With a cast including Sarah Lancashire, Lucian Msamati and Lia Williams, how could Kiri be anything but good

“Stick a flake in it before you try and sell it to the tabloids will you”

Airing on Channel 4 at the beginning of the year, Jack Thorne’s Kiri was billed as a continuation of his National Treasure brand  (I managed one episode of that first series…). But any fears I had of not liking it were assuaged by a cast led by Sarah Lancashire, Lucian Msamati and Lia Williams, plus this far down the line, I’d heard enough good things about it to finally get round to watching. 

Set in Bristol, Kiri follows the abduction of a young black girl – Kiri – in the foster care system, as she is allowed a meeting with her birth grandparents in advance of her adoption by a white middle-class family. Her social worker Miriam has arranged this unorthodox meeting and sure enough, the proverbial hits the fan when she gets a phone call to say she has gone missing. Continue reading “TV Review: Kiri”

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The 2015 Manchester Theatre Awards nominations

Actor In A Leading Role
Colin Connor in A View From The Bridge at Octagon Theatre, Bolton
Rob Edwards in An Enemy Of The People at Octagon Theatre, Bolton
Jonjo O’Neill in The Crucible at the Royal Exchange
Sam Swann in Pomona at the Royal Exchange

Actress In A Leading Role
Scarlett Brookes in Educating Rita at Oldham Coliseum
Barbara Drennan in A View From The Bridge and The Family Way at Octagon Theatre, Bolton
Kathryn Hunter in Kafka’s Monkey at HOME
Maxine Peake in The Skriker at the Royal Exchange Continue reading “The 2015 Manchester Theatre Awards nominations”

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Review: The Merchant of Venice, RSC at East WinterGarden

“Tell me where is fancy bred”

This was actually the first time I’ve been to the cinema to see some theatre, this being a rare example of the production in question being one that I hadn’t seen. Polly Findlay’s production of The Merchant of Venice for the RSC suffered a little by following a most striking one at the Globe and the reviews said as much. But with a little distance, the comparison was much less fresh in my mind and the novelty of this screening – cabaret tables, a bar, interval food from Wagamama – made it a rather fun experience.

Findlay adjusts the balance of her interpretation so that Antonio becomes its centre as well as its titular character, his presence dominates the stage at the beginning and end, his relationship with Jacob Fortune-Lloyd’s Bassanio so often merely homoerotic made explicitly homosexual. In the midst of Johannes Schütz’s anonymous golden-hued set, their passion is made manifest from the beginning and becomes a driver throughout, marriage to Portia and the commitments it entails take second place. Continue reading “Review: The Merchant of Venice, RSC at East WinterGarden”

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Review: Ghost from a Perfect Place, Arcola

“No-one has the ability to laugh at their misfortunes like the women of the East End”

I wish I liked Philip Ridley’s work more than I admire it. He has, as one of the characters here says “a remarkable way of looking at things” and his commitment to the uniqueness of his dramatic worldview is certainly impressive, it’s just that I don’t always find that I get it or that I even want to. Yet time and time again I go back to his plays as when it does work, it can have an enormous power (cf Mercury Fur).

With the slow but steady establishment of his reputation, many of his earlier works have been popping up in recent years in new productions but it still surprising to learn that this is the first revival of Ghost from a Perfect Place which dates from 1994. Somehow pre-empting and thereby predicting the rise of girl power (think Spice Girls) and gangster loving (think Lock Stock…), it holds a real fascination, if not genuine feeling. Continue reading “Review: Ghost from a Perfect Place, Arcola”

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Review: Midsummer Mischief B, The Other Place

Asked to respond to the provocation “well behaved women seldom make history”, 4 writers have produced 4 plays, Programme B of the RSC’s Midsummer Mischief contains the plays I Can Hear You by EV Crowe and This Is Not An Exit by Abi Zakarian and as with Programme A, I am expressing myself through the medium of Rupaul’s Drag Race (gifs courtesy of  Fuck Yeah Drag Race) – mischief indeed.
Once again, the seating. It may well leave you like this.

And though I’m onside with the feminists, I have to say this double bill left me disappointed.

Some may not be surprised I didn’t like Crowe’s piece (we do have history…) but though it may seem I am…
…I do try to remain open-minded, honestly. This “naturalistic supernatural” story achieves little though.
And Zakarian, a writer with whom I was previously unfamiliar, also failed to make much real impact.
So whilst I wouldn’t want to be accused of being too harsh…
…there’s no doubt that out of the pair of them, Programme B needs to sashay away.
Running time: 1 hours 50 minutes (with interval)
Booking until 12th July and then playing the Royal Court 15th-17thJuly
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Review: Midsummer Mischief A, The Other Place

In the spirit of the mischief for which it is named, my coverage of the two Midsummer Mischief programmes which mark the reopening of Stratford’s The Other Place will be told through the medium of Rupaul’s Drag Race gifs (borrowed with love from here). Now don’t fuck it up.

Four playwrights have been asked to respond to the provocation “well behaved women seldom make history” and in the first double bill, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Ant and the Cicada and Alice Birch’s Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again take on the challenge.

First things first, The Other Place has been reconstructed on the stage of the Courtyard theatre with some unforgiving, and unforgivable seating.

I mean it is hard-going to say the least and put me in mind of the body-destroying experience of sitting in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. It is not good.

But back to the theatre. Wertenbaker’s Greek-set drama strains a little hard to incorporate its multitudinous themes and explore them sufficiently. I’d put this up for elimination no doubt.

But Alice Birch’s piece sparkles with much more eleganza, extravaganza and revolutionary spirit in a fiercely argued set of scenes which look at where feminism is and where it might end up. It represents.

It has all the charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent that you could hope for and feels much more successful than the recent Blurred Lines in evoking the urgency of the debate.

So if these two were lip-syncing for their lives, it would most definitely be Alice Birch getting the ‘shantay you stay’ whilst Wertenbaker scrawls on the mirror with her lipstick.

Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes (with interval)
Booking until 12th July and then playing the Royal Court 15th-17thJuly

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Review: Love and Information, Royal Court

“What do you mean when you say it has meaning now?” 

One of the things I love most about blogging is the honesty with which it allows one to write. So much ‘official’ theatre reviewing (as in for a publication) is predicated on the basis of a perceived authority, on the acceptance of received truths, which due to space constraints are rarely articulated. But I’m not bound by any that here and so I can say I honestly don’t get what all the fuss is about Simon Russell Beale – I’ve yet to see him myself, in a performance that is worthy of being named one of our greatest ever actors – and likewise, I can say that I’m not sure that I get Caryl Churchill as a playwright. I don’t doubt or challenge her position as one of the UK’s most influential playwrights or her impact on contemporary theatre but rather, in the six plays of hers that I have seen, I haven’t had that kind of epiphany that made me stop in my tracks and say ‘this is amazing theatre’.

I’m constantly educating myself theatrically though and that’s where the informality of a blog – my theatrical education in progress if you will – comes into its own, tracing how my opinions can change (I’ve learned to love Chekhov) or not (I still dislike Ibsen, in the main). Thus I happily took the opportunity to see Love and Information, a new Churchill play at the Royal Court, her first since 2009’s controversy-baiting Seven Jewish Children, not least because it features an ensemble cast of extremely high quality. Continue reading “Review: Love and Information, Royal Court”