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Take me to the world: Hide and Seek @parktheatre

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In a small town where everyone knows everyone, if you don't like it, you might feel that the only logical thing to do is to disappear. Especially if you think it will help your social media rankings. The loneliness and isolation of youth meet influencers in the wild in Tobia Rossi's Hide and Seek. And while events take a darker turn, the humour and the intimacy make this piece about youth on the edge (of trending) fascinating and enjoyable. It's currently playing at Park Theatre .  Mirko (Nico Cetrulo) is exploring a cave with his camera when he stumbles on Gio (Louis Scarpa). Gio has been missing for a while, and the town has been looking for him. But Gio is more interested in how much he is trending on TikTok. He also had a crush on Mirko. Soon, they establish a friendship and a bond. In the cave, they explore feelings they would not dare share outside. However, things turn darker when Gio is confident enough to leave the cave, while Mirko doesn't want his double life

Art in a dark moist place: David Breuer-Weil's Project 4

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David Breuer-Weil from Guy Natanel on Vimeo . London-based artist David Breuer-Weil has taken over the vaults under Waterloo Station with Project 4, an evocative and thought-provoking exhibition about the world, the apocalypse and other social and political considerations. Nothing is small scale here. Everything is big. Most of his paintings are two metres high and four metres long. One giant canvas follows another and as you are drawn into the tunnels under Waterloo Station, they come together to form an impressive spectacle of colour. Interspersed amongst these is Breuer-Weil's sculptures which give the works an added dimension and physicality. Many Londoners will be familiar with his works, particularly his sculpture. Emergence (see below after the jump) was temporarily installed into Hanover Square in 2012 and Visitor has previously been seen in Golders Hill Park, Hampstead.

New music, new voices: The Route to Happiness

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As part of the Landor Theatre 's season of new musical writing, this week it is playing The Route to Happiness by Alexander S Bermange . It is an enjoyable three-hander about life relationships and ambition in London... A sort of a boy meets girl meets another girl while trying to succeed in business without really trying story... It starts with the three characters down on their luck. The young and ambitious Marcus loses his job after getting caught out criticising his boss on social media, the ambitious but somewhat lacking in talent Trinity fails another audition, and writer Lorna who has been unlucky in love is again dumped. They all meet at a wedding and the three start up professional and personal relationships. Bermange has written for West End shows and the BBC and has a range of musical styles. Here the piece feels like a London take on shows like I Love You Because or I Love You, You're Perfect Now Change . There is no dialogue but instead the story is told thr

Opera: Cendrillon

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Cendrillon at the Royal Opera looks great and has a great cast. Joyce DiDonato in the title role is a delight as the strong willed Cinderella. Eglise Gutiérrez as the fairy godmother looks like she would be as much at home on the stage of Priscilla Queen of the Desert as she would at Covent Garden (although she sounded a lot better of course)... She looks like she is having fun waving her wand and watching the magic unfold... Alas the opera is heavy going for a fairy tale. Part of the problem is that telling the story of Cinderella for three hours requires some memorable music and some frightfully comedy. The direction is somewhat inspired and wrestles out as much comedy as is probably possible. This includes a very wicked Ewa Podles as stepmother. But what is left is a piece that could do with some merciless editing, and perhaps removing a subplot, trimming an aria (or two) and one of the ballet sequences... That would probably make it not just family friendly, but friendly to ev

On a clear day: The View From the Shard

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The View from The Shard opens on Friday and having caught a preview of it earlier in the month, it is worth a look... Even if it is a snowy day... And visibility is poor... There is still a gee whiz excitement about looking down from the London landmark. There is something light and delicate about The Shard that makes it intriguing and not just another tall building. The journey starts with a slightly eccentric tour of London and its people before you are shuffled into one of two lifts to take you to the thirty-third floor. You are told that it will take you at speeds of six metres a second but unlike other tall buildings in London , it is not a glass lift so there is no horror or nausea from shooting up. Perhaps it is the low lighting and video screens of soothing autumnal leaves and snow that does it, but you do not feel a thing. You then have to take another lift to the top which again has soothing music and video screens which takes you to the top. There are a few more stair

Last lingering look at panto 2012: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at Wimbledon

New Wimbledon Theatre still offers one of the best pantomime productions with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with Priscilla Presley as the wicked queen, and a star turn by Jarred Christmas as her henchman. There is no pantomime dame in this show, but there are seven dwarfs headed up by Warwick Davis. It is a good balance of cheap laughs, songs, elaborate costumes and camp dance routines. It is a shame that Priscilla has to wear horns throughout the show as they cover her face and don't make it easy for her too look evil... But then again the show is a sensible two hours and ten minutes so it is a bit hard to get too bothered by this sort of thing as things move along so briskly there is no time for even turning to the programme and getting out the crayons to do a spot of colouring in...  One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful" continues to be a popular music selection choice in panto... Here's hoping next year's shows license a few more boy bands

Grey Gardens meets Downton Europorn: People

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Alan Bennett's play People is packing in audiences at the National Theatre . While enjoyable for the performances, design and occasional flash of bare buttocks and thigh, you may find yourself wondering what is the point of it. It isn't funny enough to be a comedy and not insightful enough to satire. But I'm hoping that it is just not a particularly good play rather than a desperate grab at elitism . As surely what National Theatre audiences don't want to do is to look down and feel smug about people that visit places of interest across the country? If anything it is a very mild satire about a run down house that the National Trust is hoping to acquire from aristocrat Dorothy Stacpoole, played by Frances de la Tour. Dorothy was a former fashion model but now is walking around in a moth eaten coat and gym shoes. She sleeps on the floor in front of an electric heater and apart from her companion Iris, does not see many people. Her younger sister who is a respectable

Sketches and wit: Overruled

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 The Wilmington Theatre Company's debut production of three short comic plays by George Bernard Shaw makes for a frightfully witty and enjoyable evening at the Old Red Lion Theatre . The acting and production values are quite high as infidelity, polygamy and morality are all explored. Often with hilarious results. In the first piece, How He Lied To Her Husband , a wife loses poems written for her by her young admirer. They fall into her husband's hands and his response is not quite what the wife or lover expect. It is a three hander that plays well in the confines of the theatre space and with a focussed cast everyone was hooked. Well almost everyone as there was a couple in one corner that may have got carried away with Shaw's attempts to hold a mirror up to nature and were passionately making out. The second piece, Overruled , covers two adulterous couples who are caught in the act on vacation. The source of the comedy here is the honesty of each of the couple'

Last evil looks: Robert le Diable

Closing night of The Royal Opera's Robert le Diable was a drawn out affair. An opera that was described to me as Mildred Pierce meets The Omen , it could have been half its length if all the repeated phrases were cut. I don't recall ever seeing an audience so restless either who were mostly squirming or fidgeting throughout the four and a half hours of the performance. Meyerbeer's grand opera was an instant sensation when it first premiered 1831. Full of stuff that packed in the punters - drama, the occult, difficult music - over time it has not aged well. The story is inspired by a medieval legend of the devil's son. Robert, Duke of Normandy, has travelled to Sicily with the hope of marrying Princess Isabelle. But his companion, Bertram (who turns out to be more than just a friend) leads him astray. Cue chivalry, the occult and some incredibly outrageous French knight costumes that could have come direct from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Closing night seeme

Lovely green things: Salad Days

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Salad Days is back at the Riverside Studios and is a delightful antidote to cold wet days in London. The story of a young couple who just recently graduated and find themselves entertaining London with a piano is a bit like the Fantasticks with its ever-so-silly plot, but the performances, inspired production and upbeat nature of the show make for an enjoyable, if slightly overlong show. It is 1954 and Timothy and Jane (played by the wonderful Leo Miles and Katie Moore ) leave university to make their own ways in the world. A chance meeting with a tramp brings the couple together as his street piano gives everyone around them an irresistible and unstoppable urge to dance. Meanwhile the police and the establishment want to put a stop to all this fun. Cue singing and dancing and general silliness. The production is from opera company Tête à Tête , and so the singing and musicianship is very good. But the ensemble also show a great sense of comic timing and fun in the proceedi

Phone rings, bitch and drink, lose your friends: Merrily We Roll Along

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Merrily We Roll Along , currently playing at the Menier Chocolate Factory near London Bridge is like a bitchier, nastier version of his show Company where Bobby is Frank and a total bastard. It has received great reviews , has a wonderful cast, looks good (well as good as aluminium windows on stage can be when they design feature - but the period is the sixties and seventies so it is appropriate) and sounds great. But for a show that tells the tale in reverse about how a man becomes wildly successful and loses his friends on the way, it is still a tough, bitter sell. The characters are two-dimensional and shout at each other and even as they move from jaded to optimistic, it still feels unrelenting and repetitive. By the time the upbeat finale comes about (close to the third hour) you may find yourself close to exhaustion (or sleep) to care about it much. At intermission one Sondheimista fan said to me, "but all those lost opportunities and wrong turns... That's life!&quo