High Society marks the end of Kevin Spacey’s tenure as Artistic Director at the Old Vic. It’s the perfect way to end those ten years; a giddy and joyful production, celebrating great performances and entertainment for entertainment’s sake. Adapted from the 1956 film (which itself was adapted from the 1939 play and 1940 film, The…
Settling down in a last minute seat at the RSC for Merchant, apart from the delicious meal we’d just eaten in the Rooftop Restaurant (highly recommended), my mind couldn’t help but turn to Creation’s Merchant in the summer of 2013. A soggy summer it might have been but Natalie Abrahami’s version on the rooftop of…
It’s a funny choice, for the Royal Court, I thought when they announced that they were bringing Roald Dahl’s The Twits to the stage. Not that I have anything against The Twits – far from it. Roald Dahl’s short story collections, dark and nasty with a wry and cruel comedy running through them, include of…
A reimaging of The Little Mermaid through 90s pop music? This I had to see. Holly&Ted’s Pond Wife was on for a few performances at the Old Fire Station, and so off I went, not knowing what to expect. Told by Holly Norrington, Teddy Lamb, and a bath tub, this fairy-tale has no handsome prince.…
As has happened to me a couple of times recently at the theatre, a few questions into the post show talk I had an ‘ah-ha’ moment that unlocked the whole piece. In last night’s case it was Caroline Horton talking about her three hander, comic, poignant, semi-autobiographical ‘Mess’. The last few paragraphs, that I’ve given…
“Attention must be paid”. Key to Death of a Salesman, key to all Arthur Miller’s troubled protagonists, is this idea that the tragedy of one man is something we must acknowledge –the audience must recognise one man, to see his worth and his good for all his flaws. The RCS’s current production of Death of…
It was by some happy coincidence that I landed myself a ticket to see Matthew Bourne’s ‘The Car Man’ at the Wycombe Swan last night. In truth, I wasn’t really quite sure what to expect – I knew Bourne was a famed choreographer but my knowledge didn’t extend much further than a few references from…
“It’s out of this world good” read the text from my cousin, telling me she’d bought me a ticket for 1927’s production of Golem, at Trafalgar Studios. The show had recently transferred from the Young Vic, and I knew nothing about it, except for the fact I now had a ticket. Golem is a parable…
