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Showing posts with the label Frances Barber

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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 ...
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Shameless tricks: Musik @lsqtheatre

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A trip down memory lane with Billie Trix takes on many dimensions in Musik. The jokes fly fast in this piece written by Jonathan Harvey. And in between the gags, there are songs by the Pet Shop Boys. Frances Barber, as the under-appreciated artist Billie is incredible. But as fast as Billie explodes on stage with her anecdotes and antics, it ends. And while more a series of gags and songs than a story, it’s hard not to like given Barber’s intensely funny and gripping performance as this hard-living star. It’s currently playing at the Leicester Square Theatre . Billie opens on stage wearing an eye patch claiming that Madonna stole her look. And that she is now stalking her by taking the theatre nearby and cancelling her shows so she can secretly watch and her act. It sets the scene for an hour of musing about her career as an artist. And those who stole her ideas. Andy Warhol when she gave him soup in a can. Trump when she put up a wall and so on. The character of Billie first a...
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Needs a little more mascara: Madame Rubinstein @Parktheatre

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Madame Rubinstein at Park Theatre should be a camp romp covering the rivalry between Helena Rubinstein, Elizabeth Arden and Revlon. But instead it is a dragged out affair that has few laughs and some  unintended ones. The jokes are so stale you could think that John Misto wrote it in the 1950s rather than the present day. Miriam Margolyes as Rubinstein looks the part and has fun with the role. But in the end she can't do much with a lumbering script and odd looking production. Frances Barber as Arden is terrific as her foil, but she doesn't get much to do other than look fabulous in fur.
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