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Prayers and thoughts: The Inseparables @Finboroughtheatre

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The Inseparables brings Simone de Beauvoir’s posthumously published novel to life. It traces a lifelong friendship between Sylve and Andrée, two unconventional girls who grew up in a stifling world where being a woman meant getting married or entering a convent. With a quick pace and engaging performances from the two leads, it is a journey back into the 20th century that captures two unconventional women trapped in a conventional world that will have you reflecting on how much or little things have moved on in the last century. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We’re introduced to Sylve praying for her country, France, to be saved from the war and indoctrinated into the world of faith and obedience. But too smart for all that, her life was full of detached guilt and boredom. But when she meets Andrée, a new arrival at her school, she is struck by how different she is from everyone else. She was burned in a fire and had a passion for life that nobody else she knew...

Theatre: One Man, Two Guvnors, New Cast!



The hit National Theatre play One Man, Two Guvnors has had a cast change and moved theatres on the West End. Is it still as funny? I have no idea about that as I must have been one of the few people who until this week had not seen the previous cast with James Corden. They are off to take this show to Broadway, and this show must be one of the funniest things you could see on the West End right now. If it were funnier previously it would have definitely needed to come with a health warning...

Based on The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni, the action is updated from the renaissance to 1960s Brighton with songs by Grant Olding. The update works well with the mad plot and storyline and the costumes and set look great. The music and performance by the resident band "The Craze" gives things and added touch of class.

Keeping the insanity together is former understudy to James Corden, Owain Arthur, as Francis Henshaw. He manages to make the part his own. Sitting in spitting distance to the stage (his spit not mine), you could see how bloody hard he was working for the laughs. And it always helps when the audience members he calls on for the moments of audience participation (or should that be audience lubrication since it does get everyone in the right sort of mood?) give him plenty of material to work with. His rave reviews have not gone unnoticed in his homeland, but one also suspects a new star is in the making as well...

This show has all the elements of a great farce and there are some wonderful moments of physical comedy that will have you in tears of laughter. If you want to analyse it all, there is a chat this weekend with Tony Robinson to do that, otherwise strap yourself in and go for the ride.

And gentlemen... Not that I want to give anything away... But if a gorgeous, hot, single babe sits next to you and starts chatting you up... All may not be what it seems. Which is just as well if you have your own date on your other side.

Don't miss it, or perhaps see it again to catch all the lines you were too busy laughing over to hear...
One Man Two Guvnors is playing at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Day seats available from 10am and there is a tour scheduled for later in the year.

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