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Showing posts with the label Niall McNamee

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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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Chasing stars: Chasing Bono @Sohotheatre

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You’re never left doubting why Neil McCormick didn’t reach the mega stardom of his mate Bono from U2 in Chasing Bono. Bad luck and an endless search for that hit sound (rather than a unique one) seemed to mark his career. But in this contrived play you never really get the sense of his talent as a writer either. It’s current playing at Soho Theatre . The premise is that Neil (played by Niall McNamee) is kidnapped by a ganster Danny Machin (Denis Conway). Ganster Danny wants him to write some favourable stories, while being held on some remote Irish farm. While doing so he recounts in flashback his short life and how his quest for stardom led to failure. There’s not much insight into what makes a hit band here. Instead Neil comes across as a man obsessed by fame over anything else, including writing a decent song. Which makes it a bit difficult to care about the him or the story. And afterall if failure means you’re destined to become the chief music critic for a major national newspape...
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