Theatre
Gary Naylor
Percy Jackson is neither the missing one from Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael, nor an Australian Test cricketer of the 1920s, but a New York teenager with dyslexia and ADHD who keeps getting expelled from school. He’s a bit of a loner, too intense to huddle with the geeks, too stubborn to avoid the fights with the jocks, and his mother won’t tell him anything about his absent father. Who turns out to be a Greek god. Could happen to any kid. It’s that blend of familiar anxieties and fantastical backstory that propelled Rick Riordan’s bedtime stories into novels, films, Read more ...
aleks.sierz
British theatre excels in presenting social issues: at its best, it shines a bright light on the controversial subjects that people are thinking, and talking, about. Emteaz Hussain’s excellent new play, which opens at the Royal Court, is based on the appalling crimes, which took place from the 1990s to the 2010s, which involved hundreds of young girls being sexually exploited in northern towns by gangs of predatory men.Broadly based on the Rotherham child sexual abuse scandal, which affected some 1,400 girls who were groomed by gangs of mainly Asian men, Expendable has little to say about the Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
Watching Dan McCabe’s 2019 play, older folk might be reminded of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band’s indelible lyrics, “Can blue men sing the whites, or are they hypocrites…?” The Purists moves the question into the 21st century in a teasing but very enjoyable way.Clearly McCabe has dodged the attention of the cultural appropriation monitors here, a young white man daring to write about hiphop, seemingly a passion of his. His play tags a weightier form of cultural appropriation: the incursion of capitalism into the world of emcees and rap battles, where the enemy is seen as the mighty record Read more ...
David Nice
James Joyce’s Misses Morkan have gone up in the world for their Christmas gathering this year, from the upper part of a “dark, gaunt house” on the Liffey to the splendour of No. 86 St Stephen’s Green, now home to the Museum of Literature Ireland. Those of us with an "invitation" felt we were more in the grand house of the Ekdahls in Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, but we “got” the Irish conviviality and just about every nuance of the masterly short story, with more besides.Site-specific theatre, in this case specially adapted by director Louise Lowe and scenographer Owen Boss, has never been Read more ...
Gary Naylor
"All’s well that ends well". Sounds like the kind of phrase a guilty parent says to a disappointed child after they’ve been caught in a white lie and bought them a bag of sweets to smooth things over. It’s a saying that betokens bad behaviour, a need to sweep things under the carpet, portending a fresh start. There’s an edge of power in it too, implying that the speaker can now define their interlocutor’s feelings. In short, it’s ugly.So too is the play of the same name, a soi disant "problem play", Shakespeare at his more mean-spirited, sometimes giving the impression of indulging in a bit Read more ...
Matt Wolf
"No one mourns the wicked," we're told during the immediately arresting beginning to Wicked, which concludes two hours 40 minutes later with the words, "to be continued" flashed up on the screen. Will filmgoers mourn that they have to wait an entire year to see the second part of this supercharged screen adaptation of the stage musical blockbuster that London and New York audiences can currently absorb in a single sitting? (Not for nothing has the show taken up seemingly permanent residency at Broadway's largest theatre, the Gershwin.)Wicked does nothing by halves except, it would seem, make Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Cleveland is probably the American city most like the one in which I grew up. Early into the icy embrace of post-industrialisation, not really on the way to anywhere, but not a destination either and obsessed with popular music and sports, it's very Scouse. Okay, the Mersey did not catch fire as the Cuyahoga River did in 1969, but it would not have surprised anyone in Liverpool had it done so.So it’s almost inevitable that Matt (Sam Mitchell) and Shawn (Enyi Okoronkwo) (pictured below) are like the lads with whom I grew up – okay, they’re like me, I’ll admit it. They bond over their NBA Read more ...
aleks.sierz
This Dickens classic is an annual treat, or a Christmas trial – depending on your point of view. At the Old Vic, it was adapted by Jack Thorne in 2017, and like the holly and the ivy has been a hardy perennial ever since. Here Scrooge has been played by stars such as Rhys Ifans, Paterson Joseph, Stephen Mangan and Christopher Eccleston. This time it’s the turn of John Simm.Over the years, this show – which transferred to Broadway, toured the US and was also staged in Melbourne – has raised about £1.5 million globally for food poverty charities. Although this is clearly a good Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Not just a backstage musical, a backroom musical!In the 70s, Follies and A Chorus Line took us into the rehearsal room giving us a chance to look under the bonnet to see the cogs of the Musical Theatre machine bump and grind as a show gets on its feet. But what of the other room, the writers’ room, where the ideas emerge mistily and the egos clang in conflict? [title of show] pulls back the curtain behind the curtain, behind the curtain.“More meta?” I hear you ask, a little wince in the voice. But, rather than an exercise in smartypants critiquing of cultural production from the inside-out ( Read more ...
Sarah Kent
Picture this: framing the stage are two pearlescent clouds which, throughout the performance, gently pulsate with flickering light. Behind them on a giant screen is a spinning globe, its seas twinkling like a million stars.Suddenly, this magical image is rent asunder. Thunder and lightning shake the heavens and torrential rain cascades down in stair rods. Spotlights flash and dance through billowing smoke while Laurie Anderson serenades the tempest on her violin and Kenny Wollesen lashes symbols and drums into a clamorous frenzy. The Apocalypse!DEATHLY HUSH.Anderson breaks the silence. “Hi, Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Cryptocurrency is like the myth of El Dorado – a promised land made of fool’s gold. Despite its liberatory potential, it frequently attracts sharks or, as the title of Beru Tessema’s new play indicates, hungry wolves that gobble up defenceless sheep.After the success here of his 2022 play, House of Ife, the playwright returns to the Bush Theatre with a subject which is original and a cast which includes a cameo by Jamael Westman, star veteran of the original West End production of Hamilton. This time, however, some slack plotting and predictable consequences undermine the drama of a slightly Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Mac is in prison for a long stretch. He is calm, contemplative almost, understands how to do his time and has only one rule – nobody, cellmate or guard, can touch the photo of his daughter, then three years old, attached to his wall. Though he is a man who gets through the days with few problems, he solves them through violence. On his release, his only wish is to find the daughter who will have forgotten him. Scratch (spiritual sister of Maxine in the playwright's 2022 monologue, Wolf Cub) is a wild child. With no mother (we soon guess why) and a father inside, she grows up in care Read more ...