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Review: What A Carve Up!

Jonathan Coe’s novel What A Carve Up! is adapted brilliantly into a gripping online play with an excellent lead performance from Alfred Enoch

“Who even reads novels at this point, they’re just an irrelevance”

As the shadow of another lockdown looms, What A Carve Up! shines as an example of what lemonade can be made from those particular kind of lemons. Produced collaboratively by The Barn Theatre, Lawrence Batley Theatre and New Wolsey Theatre and written specifically by Henry Filloux-Bennett for online delivery, this is exciting hybrid thinking.

Based on the novel by Jonathan Coe, Filloux-Bennett and director Tamara Harvey have done a remarkable job here. Covid restrictions aside, it would never have been the most straightforward piece to adapt but reflecting the book’s postmodern structure, this play interleaves multiple layers to build up not just a murder mystery but a damning commentary on the state of the world. Continue reading “Review: What A Carve Up!”

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News: casting confirmed for What A Carve Up!

The Barn Theatre in Cirencester, the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield and the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich have today announced the full cast for the digital world premiere of Henry Filloux-Bennett’s online play What A Carve Up!, based on Jonathan Coe’s critically acclaimed satirical novel.

Casting announced today includes Jonathan Bailey as Henry Winshaw, Samuel Barnett as Michael Owen, Robert Bathurst as Thomas Winshaw, Celia Imrie as Joan Simpson and Dervla Kirwan as the Brunwin Advert. Continue reading “News: casting confirmed for What A Carve Up!”

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News: casting for Jamie Lloyd’s The Seagull announced

The Seagull full cast alongside Emilia Clarke announced

Emilia Clarke had previously been announced to play Nina in Anya Reiss’ adaptation of The Seagull.

Joining Clarke in the cast will be Danny Ashok as Medvedenko, Robert Glenister as Sorin, Tom Rhys Harries as Trigorin, Daniel Monks as Konstantin, Tamzin Outhwaite as Polina, Patrick Robinson as Dorn, Seun Shote as Shamrayev, Indira Varma as Arkadina and Sophie Wu as Masha.

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Review: Stepping Out, Vaudeville

“I just popped into Pineapple for this”

There may be few real surprises to be had at Stepping Out but what Maria Friedman’s production here at the Vaudeville does, is to conjure a marvellously congenial atmosphere which is ideally suited to the play. Written in 1984 by Richard Harris and set the year before, to call this period comedy dated is beyond stating the obvious, its female characters wafer-thin, its gender politics non-existent.

But if it isn’t feminist with a capital F, there’s certainly lower-case feminism at work here, not least in the fact that it offers up 8 out of its 9 roles to women – bucking the male:female ratio that is stubbornly persistent in the West End. We follow this group of women, and the solitary man, as they muddle their way through a weekly tap class, building to the inevitable performance that they have to pull off. Continue reading “Review: Stepping Out, Vaudeville”

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Countdown to new Who: Doctor Who Series 7

“It is known that the Doctor requires companions”

Right – the first season that I haven’t rewatched any of at all. Things get a bit hectic here as once again, the series got split in two, accommodating the mid-season departure of Amy and Rory and the (re-)introduction of new companion Clara Oswald, plus a pair of specials respectively marking the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who and the end of Matt Smith’s tenure as Eleven. It all adds up to a bit of a bloated mess to be honest, though not without its high points.

Amy and Rory feel a little ill-served by their final five, the introduction of Mark Williams as Rory’s dad detracts from their screen-time (yet he doesn’t feature in their farewell?), though the return of the Weeping Angels gives their noirish NY-set exit episode some real heft. And though I admire Jenna Coleman’s confident take on Clara, she’s a hard companion to warm to without any contrasting humanity to go with her intelligence and intensity.

The ‘Impossible Girl’ arc didn’t really tick my box and the grandiosity of Moffatt’s writing for the finale of The Name of…, The Day of… and The Time of the Doctor doesn’t really help (I was curiously unmoved by all the fan-service second time round). Still, Gatiss knocks it out of the park with the superb Ice Warrior tale Cold War and bringing mother and daughter Dame Diana Rigg and Rachael Stirling together on screen for the first time.  Continue reading “Countdown to new Who: Doctor Who Series 7”

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Re-reviews: Di and Viv and Rose / Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

 

“It was a ball, it was a blast
It was a shame it couldn’t last”

A half-term jaunt down to London for Aunty Jean saw us take in a couple of shows I was happy to revisit. I remain as affectionately inclined towards Dirty Rotten Scoundrels as I ever have done, its traditional bonhomie remains as watchable as ever and there’s just something comfortable about the whole affair which remains hard to resist. Even whilst not being Robert Lindsay’s biggest fan (seriously, is he being paid by the pelvic thrust?!) the shimmering star quality of Kat Kingsley and the affable appeal of Alex Gaumond more than compensate. And the bumbling charms of Ben Fox, the third Chief of Police since the show started – job security in Beaumont-Sur-Mer is clearly not strong 😉 – prove the ideal foil for Bonnie Langford’s knowingly charismatic Muriel.

And we also made a more-timely-than-we-realised trip to Amelia Bullmore’s Di and Viv and Rose which posted closing notices pretty much as we left the matinée. It feels a real shame as it is such a sprightly production of a sparkling play which certainly deserved better audiences but for whatever reason, it just didn’t connect. I’ve written more about the show on my three previous visits (link here) but I’d definitely recommend trying to catch it before it closes, not least for some of the most joyous dancing onstage (which forms the perfect counterbalance to My Night With Reg) and Jenna Russell’s glorious performance as the hugely-generous-of-spirit Rose. 

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes (with interval)
Booking until 7th March

Di and Viv and Rose
Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes (with interval)
Booking until 14th March

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Re-viewing Bull, and Di and Viv and Rose

“If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else”
 
In one of those curious co-incidences, Mark Shenton’s blog for The Stage today was about the pleasure of re-viewing shows already seen. For me, it was a two show day and in both cases, it was the third time I had seen them, albeit in different productions. Part of being a theatre addict is the delicious thrill of being able to revisit plays and get something new from them, as well as being reminded of why I enjoyed it so much, and so it proved with Mike Bartlett’s Bull and Amelia Bullmore’s Di and Viv and Rose.
 
I first saw Bull in a rehearsed reading at the Finborough back in 2010, when I was still in the process of falling hard for Bartlett’s writing, and was then so enthused by the prospect of seeing a full production that we made a trip to Sheffield to see it be wonderfully staged by Clare Lizzimore in the Studio at the Crucible in 2013. (Travelling from London to Sheffield for a show that isn’t even an hour long is proof positive, as if it were ever needed, of the strength of my addiction!) And it is that same production that has belatedly arrived at the Young Vic this year.

Continue reading “Re-viewing Bull, and Di and Viv and Rose”

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Review: Breeders, St James

“We weren’t sure how well a pair of lesbians pretending to breast feed a bag of flour would go down in B&Q”

Heading up the One Stage season of work led by emerging producers – in this case Vicky Graham – Ben Ockrent’s Breeders sees a sadly rare thing, a play that just casually has more women than men in its cast. When you hear that it is a comedy about lesbians who want to become parents then that becomes a little less surprising but from the anecdotal evidence I’ve been collecting this year, our stages remain disproportionately weighted with testosterone.

Anyhoo, back to the lesbians. Andrea and Caroline have just moved into a swanky new house and want to fill it with a family and specifically, with a family that is as biologically connected to them as possible. So they ask Andrea’s brother Jimmy to be the sperm donor, something that takes him and his girlfriend Sharon by surprise, and as they agree to create their own version of a modern family, it appears that they’re breeding as much trouble as they are children. Continue reading “Review: Breeders, St James”