Featured Post

Bear with me: Sun Bear @ParkTheatre

Image
If The Light House is an uplifting tale of survival, Sarah Richardson’s Sun Bear gives a contrasting take on this. Sarah plays Katy. We’re introduced to Katy as she runs through a list of pet office peeves with her endlessly perky coworkers, particularly about coworkers stealing her pens. It’s a hilarious opening monologue that would have you wishing you had her as a coworker to help relieve you from the boredom of petty office politics.  But something is not quite right in the perfect petty office, where people work together well. And that is her. And despite her protesting that she is fine, the pet peeves and the outbursts are becoming more frequent. As the piece progresses, maybe the problem lies in a past relationship, where Katy had to be home by a particular hour, not stay out late with office colleagues and not be drunk enough not to answer his calls. Perhaps the perky office colleagues are trying to help, and perhaps Katy is trying to reach out for help. It has simple staging

Theatre: Absent Friends

Wednesday evening was an opportunity to catch the latest revival of Alan Ayckbourn's frightfully witty comedy, Absent Friends, which is playing at the Harold Pinter Theatre. There is something about this play that has enduring appeal, even now as a period piece. It takes a particularly English setting of an afternoon tea party and slowly twists it. It is funny and occasionally surprising which makes for a great night out.

The story focused around a tea party organised for Colin (played by Reece Shearsmith), who returns to visit his circle of friends after the death of his fiancee. For a variety of reasons, his friends are more anxious about how to deal with the situation than he is and so the play explores the very English way people deal with grief and loss, infidelities and lost dreams.


The production takes you back to the 1970s, and reminded me of my parents house. There is also a wonderful collection of tea cups and matching teapot decorated with a giant sunflower and hideous colours. And the set is complete with rock walls and dark wooden furniture. It all served to ram home what life back then was really about: polyester and laminate. And it is enough to make you wonder what role the environment played on sending people bonkers. 

In addition to Shearsmith there is a great ensemble cast here that works hard for the laughs. This includes David Armand, Elizabeth Berrington, Katherine Parkinson, Steffan Rhodri and Strictly Come Dancing Winner 2010 Kara Tointon. Tointon manages to give such an understated performance involving chewing gum and reading a ladies magazines, that she gets laughs from just glaring at one of the characters. As its short run continues no doubt it will get even better. Worth catching.


Popular posts from this blog

Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

Image
David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan
Read more...

Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

Image
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue .   Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple.  The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial security
Read more...

Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

Image
Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
Read more...