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Lonely Town: The Lonely Londoners @JSTheatre

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Sam Selvon’s novel about the Windrush generation comes to vivid life in this flashy adaptation by Roy Williams—the hustle and the struggle contrast with the exuberant joy and acclamation of life in the city. Lights flash, feet dance, and pigeons get strangled...  for food. It’s an hour and forty-five minutes that doesn’t let up, and it is currently playing at the Jermyn Street Theatre .  Set in 1956 London, we meet Henry “Sir Galahad” Oliver (Romario Simpson). He is in a hurry to start a new life in London and seeks out Moses Aloetta (Gamba Cole) to help him get started. Only to find that Moses and his friends have become disillusioned with city life and don’t share his enthusiasm. The fights, the petty discrimination, and the lack of job offers make it an endless struggle. And it’s fascinating to see the transformation of Simpson as he gets worn down by the endless setbacks.  It’s a simple yet stylish production, with the cast remaining onstage with a black wall. Elliot Griggs’ lighti

The generation gap as an overlong play: Love, Love, Love

Love, Love, Love by Mike Bartlett is now playing at the Royal Court . It's an epic drama about Kenneth and Sandra who meet in the sixties and start a fiery relationship. They have two children, divorce and then retire. But all is not well and it is the harsh economic realities that become the focus of the play. It has some sort of impact as people were filing out of the theatre Saturday night muttering amongst themselves, "Oh well, we will have to buy our children a house" or "I'm never going to be able to afford to buy on my salary". A play that tackles the theme of the baby boomer generation as the locust generation is an interesting premise. But at three hours you will leave the theatre wondering if they could have made it shorter and called it Love, Love. As one particularly loud American couple noted in the foyer after the first act, it was fifty minutes that could have been told in five. The characters and more caricatures and there are no real s