To Float on the Wayward Wind

5/5 Unscorched , by 2013 Papatango New Writing Prize winner Luke Owen, blends awkwardness, uncomfortable humour, and heart-wrenching romance into a visceral snapshot into the lives of those who bring to justice perpetrators of child abuse. Georgia Lowe’s innovative design sets the action on a runway stage. Sharp geometry using boxes to form key parts of the pornography review office emphasizes the starkness of the profession. Brilliantly, the floor opens to a bed, softening the texture for the love scenes. Lighting by Joshua Carr sets off this design, fluidly changing from harshly symbolic LED lights in the office to a warmer tone in the personal spaces. Justin Audibert’s direction also takes advantage of this intimate design in the Finborough. Whether awkward, romantic, or horrifying, the tone of scenes flows fluidly as sudden revelations shift the atmosphere. Equally fluid are the scene changes, with actors never breaking character even in the low light, allowing the n...

5/5 David Tennant embodies the title role of Shakespeare’s Richard II , live in Stratford and broadcast worldwide by the Royal Shakespeare Company for the first time. The production’s atmosphere is reverent and gripping. Design and lighting, by Stephen Brimson Lewis and Tim Mitchell respectively, feels period-appropriate but freshly modern. The thrust stage offers director Gregory Doran great variety for staging while a bridge and shimmering curtains of beads infuse a sense of mystery. Doran uses space shrewdly in executing the production’s allegorical concept. Parallels between Richard and Jesus Christ were notable but not heavy handed, keeping the focus on the characters. Still, chant-like music, composed by Paul Englishby and performed live, combined with the cathedral-like design contribute to the sense of holiness, aptly touching on the play’s central issue of the divine right of kings. Rather than resting within this allegorical context, David Tennant plays an ...

My review of the Royal Opera House's production of Verdi's Les vêpres siciliennes  has been posted at:  http://passionofopera.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/when-theyre-on-verdis-les-vepres.html

31 October 2013 Criterion Theatre        4.5/5 If the the term “comic timing,” is often used to evaluate the effectiveness of comedy in theatre, then Patrick Barlow’s The 39 Steps can be appropriately described as “like clockwork.” Adapted from John Buchan’s novel The Thirty-Nine Steps and tracking closely with Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film The 39 Steps , the play proceeds riotously as four actors play myriad characters, switching off in a perfectly rehearsed slapstick shtick. The play focuses on Richard Hannay, falsely accused of murder and drawn into an international conspiracy, played by Adam Jackson-Smith, and the three women he encounters, played by Jennifer Bryden. The comedic geniuses, however, are Stephen Critchlow and Andy Williams, each billed simply as “Man” but playing countless characters. Critchlow and Williams rollick through the show, whether interacting with each other or with the other character...

31 October 2013 Duchess Theatre 4/5 Under Jonathan Church’s direction, Henry Goodman embodies Arturo Ui, crafting a performance of Bertolt Brecht’s allusion to the rise of Hitler with uncannily focused energy. Even if it strays from Brecht’s original intentions and only truly blossoms in the play’s final moments, the production’s genius is its subtlety as it proceeds from unsettling comedy to dark poignancy. Design by Simon Higlett and lighting by Tim Mitchell engage partially with Brecht’s philosophies, using a runway, tableaux on stage, and sparse set to remind the audience of being in a theatre performance. Sometimes this technique lacks a clear purpose but eventually draws the audience powerfully into the performance by designating swaths of seats as either Chicago or Cicero. Unfortunately, the absence of the signboards Brecht envisioned, which list the precise historical connections between the play and Nazi Germany, undermines the performance’s relatabilit...

1/5 Glossy posters advertise From Here to Eternity as the next shining star of the West End musical scene. The experience in the Shaftesbury, though, feels more like the death throes of a supernova. The musical, derived more from the 1951 novel by James Jones than the 1953 film adaptation, fails to capture the magic that won the film eight Academy Awards. Missing the opportunity for rich period-accurate music, Composer Stuart Brayson opts instead to rehash trite conventions of musical theatre. Though the underscoring is pleasant, transitions from dialogue to song are dizzyingly abrupt. Ballads blur together while upbeat numbers blare gratingly. Rice relies more on vulgarity and colloquialism than on intelligent writing, of which he is capable. The bellowing male chorus reprises a cornerstone piece, “Thirty Year Man,” so frequently it seems as though Rice and Brayson wrote only half a musical and then recycled material. The performances of the leads further und...