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Review: Misfits, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch

The four monologues of Misfits, streaming via Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, present slightly-too-disparate aspects of life in Essex

“I am the bastard love child of Chas and Dave”

The monologue has been a mainstay of lockdown programming so there’s something sadly inevitable that Misfits, commissioned in the first lockdown, finds its IRL run kyboshed by the second. But Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch were live to the risks and had already developed a model where audience members could choose whether to book an actual or virtual seat to see the show.

Misfits appears as part of their Essex on Stage season, and sees short plays by Anne Odeke, Guleraana Mir,  Kenny Emson and Sadie Hasler encapsulating something of the inimitable Essex spirit through its vivid characters. So there’s nights out in Romford or Southend aplenty with pints of Snakebite and canary yellow GTIs but also a great deal of heart and a defiant sense of identity, which sometimes has to be worked on. Continue reading “Review: Misfits, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch”

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An assortment of October theatre news

Full casting has been announced for Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch’s upcoming production of Misfits, an innovative new hybrid of live theatre and digital content, playing 12-22 November 2020. Bookers will purchase a ticket which will allow them the choice of watching the show be performed live onstage in front of a socially
distanced audience or streamed to their homes, right up until the day of the show.

Misfits intertwines four inspirational tales of Essex resilience to make an unmissable world premiere by four of the region’s most exciting playwrights: Anne Odeke, Guleraana Mir, Kenny Emson and Sadie Hasler and will be co-directed by QTH Artistic Director Douglas Rintoul and Emma Baggott. The cast is Anne Odeke, who is also writing part of the piece, Gemma Salter, Mona Goodwin and Thomas Coombes. Continue reading “An assortment of October theatre news”

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TV Review: Save Me Too

Lennie James and his iconic yellow jacket return for an uncompromising and still excellent second series of Save Me, this time with added Lesley Manville 

“Thought I was cleverer than I am, I went in there, bloody swinging my dick. I offered him out and he sat me on my arse”

After a scorching first series, series 2 of Save Me, wittily named Save Me Too, picks up some 17 months later. South East London charmer Nelly had his world tipped upside down when his long-estranged daughter Jody was abducted and all signs pointed to someone he knew being deeply involved. And a tense finale saw him following the trail only to find a different kidnapped girl – Grace.

The slight time-jump of this second series is an effective tool as it allows James to explore the weight of tragedy with a little distance added in. Two years or so down the line, life has had to continue but the shadow of a child abuse ring naturally lingers heavily and we how see James’ Nelly, and to a lesser degree Suranne Jones’ Claire – Jody’s mum – have accommodated as best they can the vacuum in their world. Continue reading “TV Review: Save Me Too”

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Review: A Kind of People, Royal Court

Not much festive cheer around at the Royal Court, but plenty of grimly insightful writing in Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s A Kind of People

“This will bleed and bleed”

Opening with the kind of house party you’d be quite happy to end up at after a few drinks down the pub, you can kinda see where the Royal Court is coming from in programming Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s A Kind of People over Christmas. But as in the tradition of all good parties – and most good plays – something goes wrong, conflict must arise, and any sense of festive cheer is soon Scrooged away.

Bhatti’s play is set in the bosom of a tight-knit multicultural, working class community, with mixed-race couple Gary and Nicky at its heart. With friends and family forever knocking on their door, their home doesn’t lack for conviviality but it is lacking space – they’re bursting out of the seams of their council flat. But Gary’s up for a promotion at work, with a serious pay rise, so things could be looking up. Continue reading “Review: A Kind of People, Royal Court”

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Review: Plastic, Old Red Lion

A brutal and bleak look at teenage dreams and experiences – Kenneth Emson’s Plastic is playing at the Old Red Lion before a short run at the Mercury in Colchester

“Think Columbine, think Sandy Hook, think Virginia Tech…”

Deeply poetic, densely constructed and deftly performed, Kenneth Emson’s Plastic finds itself in the unfortunate position of being considered timely. In its depiction of the way violence insinuates itself into society through schoolhood trauma, and disproportionately affects teenagers, it has a horrible currency reflected in the rising crime rates that Amber Rudd apparently knows so little about.

Set in Emson’s native Essex, at a secondary school where old friendships have been recalibrated along new tribal lines, Plastic examines not just the faultlines that emerge from being bullied, but the hopelessness that accompanies the thought that being the popular kid might just be as good as life will ever get. Brutal and bleak, it is uncompromising about how desperate life can get for those feel left behind. Continue reading “Review: Plastic, Old Red Lion”

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TV Review: Save Me (Series 1)

Over on Sky, Save Me turns out to be something rather brutally brilliant, written by and starring Lennie James, alongside an exceptional Suranne Jones

“I’ve just gone to see my dad”

Lennie James is billed as the creator of Save Me, as well as leading the cast alongside Suranne Jones, and it is a good thing he is up to the job as it has turned out to be a rather brutally brilliant series. Set in a tight-knit community in Deptford, it’s a clever take on the missing child genre that proved remarkably tense and completely gripping as it winds to a gut-punch of a conclusion.

James plays Nelson Rowe, Nelly to those that love him and it is clear that many do in this corner of South East London. He’s a total chancer, sleeping with any number of lovers, and balancing any number of side hustles in lieu of an actual job. But when the police come crashing through the door, everything changes. The daughter who he hasn’t seen since she was three has gone missing and she was on her way to see him, as her phone shows she’s been messaging with him for weeks. Continue reading “TV Review: Save Me (Series 1)”

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TV Review: The Honourable Woman

“It’s the Middle East Shlomo, enemies is what you make”

Only by chance did I find out that The Honourable Woman was leaving Netflix at the end of this month, so I quickly took the opportunity to catch up with Hugo Blick’s political spy thriller and as is so often the case with these things, was left wondering how I could have taken this long to watch it.

Political intrigue and personal drama coming from kidnapped children, suspicious suicides and betrayals ranging from old blood feuds to intra-familial conflict set the scene immediately for a typically dense and complex story from Blick, centred on a refreshingly new take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the seeming impossibility of finding a solution when the wounds of the past are still felt so keenly and deeply. Continue reading “TV Review: The Honourable Woman”

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TV Review: The Scandalous Lady W

“My mother did not tell me playing rantum-scantum would be thus”

To be in a marriage where your partner wants you to sleep with Oliver Chris on the side might seem like an ideal scenario for several people I know, but as The Scandalous Lady W shows us, dreams rarely match up to reality. Continuing my belated catch-up of TV from throughout 2015, BBC2 repeated this 90 minute drama from the summer and finally having the time to watch things, I sat down for some Georgian shenanigans.

Written by David Eldridge from Hallie Rubenhold’s book Lady Worsley’s Whim, The Scandalous Lady W tells the sorry marital woes of  Seymour, Lady Worsley. Married to Tory MP Sir Richard Worsley, the heiress was taken aback to discover that his carnal desires stretched wanting her to sleep with other men whilst he peeped through the keyhole and whilst she complied at first – a man’s wife being his property and all – she eventually eloped with one of them. Continue reading “TV Review: The Scandalous Lady W”

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TV Review: Cuffs Episodes 1-4

“All we can do is hang on”

Rather incredibly, given the number of crime dramas there are, Cuffs is actually the BBC’s first police procedural since 2007’s Holby Blue (according to Wikipedia at least), but a rather good one it is too. Creator Julie Gearey has set the show in Brighton and its environs, the territory of the South Sussex Police service, and the first four episodes (which entertained me on a train journey back from Amsterdam) started Cuffs off so strongly that I wanted to recommend it now whilst you can still catch them all on the iPlayer.

The opening episodes are jam-packed with incident, the first part alone crammed child abduction, stolen JCBs, stabbings and a racist released from prison to give a strong sense of the relentless pace of life in the force but the writing has been particularly strong in demonstrating the peculiar demands of modern policing. Traditional boundaries of respect have been torn down so we see the police punched, spat on, and kicked in the face and also having to deal with rubberneckers filming accident scenes on their phone, and members of the public chancing their arm with harassment claims. Continue reading “TV Review: Cuffs Episodes 1-4”

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2013 Offie Award Winners

Offies Awards - Off West End Theatre Awards

BEST MALE PERFORMANCE
Jasper Britton in Mother Adam at Jermyn Street 
Louis Maskell in The Fix at Union Theatre
Thomas Coombes in Barbarians at Tooting Arts Club
William Houston in Uncle Vanya at The Print Room

BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE 
Aysha Kala in Khadija is 18 at Finborough Theatre
Eileen Atkins in All That Fall at Jermyn Street
Lucy Ellinson in Oh, The Humanity at Soho Theatre
Matti Houghton in Brimstone and Treacle at Arcola Theatre

BEST NEW PLAY
Lot and his God by Howard Barker at The Print Room 
Lungs by Duncan Macmillan by Paines Plough (Shoreditch Town Hall) 
Shivered by Philip Ridley at Southwark Playhouse Continue reading “2013 Offie Award Winners”