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Showing posts with the label Bronwyn James

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Somewhere that's green: Potty the Plant at Wiltons Music Hall

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"I'm Potty the Plant," sings a potted plant in this odd little fringe concept of a show. It's hard not to get the tune out of your head, even if the show is brief. It's an earworm for a show that features a worm-like plant as a puppet. And given the show's brevity, running at only an hour, it's hard to get too annoyed by a lack of a coherent story, even if it still seems like the show could use a bit more development (which is underway). It has made its London debut at Wilton's Music Hall. The premise is that Potty, the plant, lives in the hospital office of Dr Acula (geddit?) and dreams of a life with the cleaning lady Miss Lacey (Lucy Appleton). But Dr Acula might be responsible for why all these children are disappearing while trying to romance Miss Lacey for her family's money that she doesn't have. Three nurses are on the case, trying to solve the mystery.  If the show settled on a convincing plot, location and set of characters, it could ...
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It’s grim up there: Hangman

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Hangmen is Martin McDonagh's first new work on the London stage in a decade. But something is unsettling about this commentary on mob mentality and nostalgia. It’s grim world where the hero is the second best hangman in the country. And the smell of cigarette smoke and stale beer permeates the air. Well you don’t smell the beer but there is so much smoking on stage it wafts into the audience. It is 1963 when the show opens. A prisoner is desperate to delay his execution by any means possible. But Harry Wade, the resourceful and efficient hangman, keeps things on track. The scene is hilarious right up to the moment when the trapdoor opens and you hear his neck snap. Fast forward two years and Harry is running a pub in Oldham. Capital punishment has been abolished. A cub reporter from the local paper is chasing him for an interview. Still, he has his regulars at the pub. They are like his fans, clinging on to stories from the old days as if capital punishment was a sport....
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