Featured Post

Still here: While They Were Waiting - Upstairs At The Gatehouse

Image
As the song goes, time heals everything. Or as another song says, it's time after time. Yet waiting—for a moment, a minute, or even a while—can feel like a chore. In Gary Wilmot’s slightly absurd and silly While They Were Waiting, the focus is on waiting and wordplay. No opportunity is missed to find more than one meaning in what is said. A debate arises about the difference between a smidge and a whisker. There's a playful riff on how you can be here and over there at the same time, depending on your standpoint. If this piece has a point at all, it depends on what you find funny. The concept of waiting-related language is, in itself, amusing, and there is plenty to laugh about in this show. It’s currently playing at Upstairs at the Gatehouse . The premise is simple: Mulbery (Steve Furst) arrives for an appointment and is kept waiting. What the appointment is for, we are not clear about but he is waiting for a yellow door to open. Nobody answers when he rings. He’s joined by th...

Let's talk about stuff: Clickbait @theatre503


Clickbait is a comic new play about society’s attitude to porn and the women who make it for themselves. But it is hard to know exactly what to make of it.

There is enough material for several plays here; attitudes to pornography, how to set up a sex empire, concepts of consensual sex. They are all explored, but all too briefly to make much sense.

The play follows Nicola (played by Georgia Groome) who, threatened with the release of an amateur sex video, makes a snap decision to post it online herself.



But soon she is fielding unrelenting media interest and setting up her own sex empire with her two sisters as if it were as easy as setting up a theatre blog.

It all feels a little superficial. The youngest teenage sister (played by the amusing Alice Hewkin) also gets the raw deal in having to explain vast chunks of social media-speak to the audience.

The silliness builds as Nicola becomes a powerful porn magnate who wears polyester pyjamas and bunny slippers. It only redeems itself in the final moments when it grounds it back to origins of the revenge porn.

It is a pity as there is an interesting story among it all. There are some interesting ideas about responding to revenge porn, social media trolls (depicted by the actors with masks) and what it is to be sexually empowered. But none of them are considered long enough to support the show.

And while the title is catchy, it is a little confusing. Clickbait is those links to stories such as "how to retire at 55" or "what you should do for thinning hair". It isn't really about sex or revenge porn. But then again, I wasn't sure the play was either...

Clickbait by Milly Thomas runs at Theatre503 until 13 February.

⭐︎⭐︎

Photos: Production images by Oliver King

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 ...
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...