Bleak house: The Moor @ORLTheatre

The scene is set for a moody mystery when you enter the Old Red Lion Theatre to see The Moor. It’s almost as if you can feel the peat bog as you take your seat. 

A girl is bent over a chair as you enter the theatre. Is she crying? Has there been a crime?

Bronagh (Jill McAusland) and her boyfriend Graeme (Oliver Britten) go out for a party across the moor. The next day they discover a man they met that night is missing. 

From the outset you understand that Bronagh is terrified of her possessive and abusive partner. But she is also grieving over the recent death of her mother, and suffering post-natal depression. 

Did a man disappear and did her boyfriend have anything to do with it? McAusland is engaging as the trapped and confused Bronagh. 

Amongst all her dreams and mad stories about elves, is something sinister really at play?

As her account of events becomes confused and contradictory, you’re not sure if she saw or took part in a potential crime. 

Unfortunately attempts to get to the bottom of it all through a police investigation suck all the mystery and moodiness out of the piece. Even with a warm performance by Jonny Magnanti as the fatherly policeman Pat. 

Besides a piece with only three characters limits the options for what happened or could have happened. 

Still there is a terrific set by Holly Pigott that grounds the piece in a dark place. The sound design by Anna Clock, with baby cries and other sounds underscores the tension.

Even if it doesn’t quite live up to its potential as a psychological thriller, it’s a worthwhile piece of new writing by Catherine Lucie.

Directed by Blythe Stewart, The Moor is at The Old Red Lion Theatre until 3 March.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Photos by The Other Richard

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 understand the…
Read more...

Fluffing it: Rouge @Underbellyfest

Image
It's not enough for a circus act nowadays to offer a series of acrobatic feats. Nowadays, they are pushing all sorts of conventions. There's the all-male, the all-female, the all minimalist. Rouge is the all gender fluid pan-sexual circus for grown-ups who like a bit of everything. But only if that everything includes a little bit of nudity and a bit of mild titillation. 
The men wear eyeliner, the pairings are male-female, male-male and female-female.Strong female types abound throughout. It's a unique concept that's marred by its own timidity. It's currently playing at the Underbelly Festival on the Southbank.
The performers are interesting enough. There's the aerial trapeze, the ring, and the strap. All are deftly executed. There's a terrific flame swallowing routine which seems all the more intense in the confines of the Spiegeltent.
An inventive sequence happens where the performer is wearing a lampshade and combines hula hoops with a frantic strip dance …
Read more...

Swatting: The Flies @BunkerTheatreUK

Image
The Flies at The Bunker theatre is a chance for production company Exchange Theatre - which specialises in translating plays for English audiences - to return to the piece that put them on the map. With live music, video and eye-catching design, it’s an ambitious piece. But it seemed to miss any sense of drama. And it’s star actor Meena Rayann was off too.

Jean Paul Satre’s take on the Oresteia and the Electra myth, was written during the Nazi occupation of France. Fast forward seventy years, it's tempting to equate today’s new nationalists with yesterdays fascists. But it's a lazy comparison given the grand themes under exploration here. It feels more like an apparent dig at Nazi occupation, organised religion or group think over fake news, immigrant bashing and economic hardship.


It opens where two travellers approach Argos, a town where everyone is in mourning. One is Orestes in disguise. The city has become a dark place cursed with flies as punishment from the Gods since …
Read more...