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High anxiety: Collapse - Riverside Studios

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It’s a brave or maybe slightly provocative production to use Hammersmith Bridge on their artwork for a show called Collapse, which is about how everything collapses—poorly maintained bridges, relationships, and jobs. Nothing works. That’s probably too close to home for Hammersmith residents stuck with a magnificently listed and useless bridge on their front door. It gets even weirder when you realise the piece is staged in what looks like a meeting room with a bar. However, keeping things together in the most unlikely of circumstances is at the heart of Allison Moore's witty and engaging four-hander, which is currently having a limited engagement at Riverside Studios . The piece opens with Hannah (Emma Haines) about to get an injection from her husband (Keenan Heinzelmann). They’re struggling for a baby, and he’s struggling to get out of bed. But he managed to give her a shot of hormones before she started worrying about the rest of the day. She’s unsure she will keep her job with ...
Theatre: Grand Hotel

Grand Hotel was a fabulous little diversion for the evening, the weekend, the month... The run at the Donmar has completely sold out and for good reason since the show is so stylish and cleverly put together with a great cast.

There is not much set just the back of the hotel sign and a few props. The blanks are filled in with songs and dancing. So who could fault that? The history of this musical is that it was based on the 1938 film, but also on a failed musicalised version in the 1950s by the collaborators on Kismet. Half the songs were replaced in this version and it probably was for the best as while the shift in music styles is noticeable it also helps keep things moving. There is no interval but the one hour and 45 minutes just breezes by.

This production tells a much darker story than the film, but that probably suits modern tastes. Best of all was the Baron, played by Julian Ovenden - who was eye candy and ear candy with his looks and tenor voice. Even better was the scene in which he was on the couch underneath Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio looking into her eyes (and the rest). Sitting front row in the circle you could be forgiven for mistaking that he was making eyes with the audience... That's part of the intimate experience of live theatre that they don't always tell you about...

Housekeeping

As I drag this blog site out of mothballs, I will be looking at the format of the blog over the next few days. As more new postings go online the ones from 2003 will disappear as well I expect. The rest I will make up as I go along. And the blog will be more about me. Actually come to think of it, I am not sure if anyone will see any noticable changes!

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