A life of hope and promise, interrupted, lies at the heart of Mr Jones: an Aberfan Story. The play follows two young people in Aberfan before and after the disaster that killed 144 people, including 116 children. It’s an emotional coming-of-age tale of intersecting lives, family, love, and the shock of tragedy. With two vivid performances and strong characterisations, you feel immersed in 1960s Welsh small-town life. It’s now running at the Finborough Theatre , after performances at the Edinburgh Festival and across Wales. The Aberfan disaster is well known in the UK but perhaps less so elsewhere. The facts of the tragedy are confined to the programme notes rather than in the piece. On 21 October 1966, the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on a mountain above Aberfan engulfed a local school, killing many. The play avoids the causes and negligence, instead focusing on those working and building lives in the town. Writer-performer Liam Holmes plays Stephen Jones, a...
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Theatre: Passion
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Stephen Sondheim's Passion has started previewing at the Donmar as part of the Sondheim at 80 season... This dark story about a young officer drawn towards a sick unhealthy woman is less musical and more melodrama set to a lush romantic score, with a bit of crazy thrown. The musical motifs repeat and repeat to a dizzying point and if you let yourself accept the basic premise of the show you're in for a hell of a ride. I have always liked this show in which the central message seems to be long distance relationships don't work, no matter how well written the letters are. Sondheim's music and lyrics are more natural here and grounded in realism, including told through a series of epistolary songs that repeat and alter. And if it this production is this good on the first night, it can only get better.
The show opens with Scarlett Strallen as Clara and David Thaxton as Giorgio in their underwear doing gymnastic gyrations on an unmade bed. Amongst all this they manage to sing the opening number "Happiness". Of course the last time I saw Passion they were naked in this scene so I was a little disappointed with the underwear. Whether it was the choreography or the opening night or the fact that Sondheim has written some rather odd notes for them to sing, the performances at this stage seemed a little hesitant, but this quickly changed and both got better as the show went along...
Waiting for Elena Roger to appear in the main role of Fosca is quite suspenseful. Initially hearing only her screams and moans (it's that sort of show), she arrives onstage after walking behind the set's open doorways, startling both the audience and Giorgio... But she seems such a small and delicate figure - timid and meek - that you feel like you can sit back a little. This changes as dialogue transforms into song and she sings her first song "I read"... There begins the descent into a dark world with one disturbing scene after another. It would be easy to turn this character into a caricature and recent performances of songs from this show have done this. But Roger keeps the role so finely balanced between realism and melodrama that her looks, her screams, her breakdowns are like they are actually happening. And the small space of the Donmar puts you in the front seat of it.
To give anything further away about the show would be to spoil the fun of this gothic musical. It was Webcowgirl's first time watching this show and she felt it was not what she thought it would be as our Audioboo below explains. Meanwhile others in our party commented they were too old for all this melodrama, but they loved it all the same. At times you will want to slap the characters, but once accepting of the melodrama, it's as disturbingly enjoyable as Sweeney Todd. Afterall, isn't being surrounded by people who are just nuts and then gradually accepting that as normal just part of everyday life? It runs until the end of November. Don't miss it.
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...
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 ...
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.
