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Bit parts: Garry Starr Performs Everything @swkplay

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Garry Starr Performs Everything is a bare-bones (and bare buttocks) tribute to the theatre. Theatre may be in trouble, and audiences are down, but Garry Starr aims to save the theatre and bring back to the masses every style of theatre possible. As long as each style involves wearing a transparent white leotard or a skimpy thong. And tassels. It's part comedy, part physical comedy and part perv at Gary's physical prowess. The sentiment "if you've got it, flaunt it" applies here. So here we are with a show that has been around for some years and is having its first proper London run at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) through Christmas. The premise is that Garry Starr (played by Damien Warren-Smith) has left the Royal Shakespeare Company over artistic differences. He is now on a mission to save the theatre from misrepresentation and worthy interpretations by doing things such as a two-minute Hamlet, recreating scenes from a Pinter play using unsuspecting audience

Lighter shades of grey: The Picture of Dorian Gray @Trafstudios


Something seems missing in this new adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, currently playing at Trafalgar Studios. Missing is any sense of excitement or thrills you would expect from Oscar Wilde's story about a beautiful man's hedonistic descent.

The story was a scandal when it was first published. This new adaptation by Merlin Holland (Wilde's grandson) and John O'Connor, restores some homoerotic passages from the original manuscript. But as fascinating as they are, the overall piece is a bit of a damp squib.


It is perplexing that more was not made of the the added homoeroticism. There are no kisses, no sexual liaisons. It all talk and no show in this passionless production, despite the dialogue suggesting otherwise.

Guy Warren-Thomas as Dorian with his sharp and delicate features makes a fine Dorian, but the remaining three performers seem miscast. They also have the thankless task of playing over twenty roles and dragging a few pieces of furniture about the set.

If it is an economic necessity to have four cast members, it would be better to remove some of the superfluous roles so that the differentiation between characters did not have to rely on the type of hat or gloves the actor is wearing. Future shows that reduce casts should also seriously look at equal gender casting so we don't have to have suffer male actors playing pantomime dames in drama pieces.

Downstairs at the Trafalgar Studios is a great intimate space and at times it feels like they are acting in your lap. But with its short scenes and huge cast, perhaps this is a piece that might play better as a television movie... It is a pity that it has not been adapted to better suit its current space (and its economic confines).

The Picture of Dorian Grey is at Trafalgar Studios until 13 February.

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎

Photo credit: Production photo by Emily Hyland

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