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A night at the opera: That Bastard Puccini! (Park Theatre)

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It’s hard to imagine that it’s only been 130 years since Puccini first premiered La Boheme. Nowadays, it’s a revered classic, and guaranteed to be on any opera company's annual programme if it needs to stay afloat. It’s a crowd pleaser with its melodrama of poor, impoverished artists loving, starving and dying in Paris. But Puccini’s La Boheme had a less auspicious beginning, with one of his contemporaries accusing him of stealing his idea and being poorly received on its first outing. And that’s at the heart of That Bastard Puccini! Currently playing at Park Theatre , writer James Inverne uses the friendship and rivalry between the two composers, Puccini and Ruggero Leoncavallo, to weave a comic tale of creative frustration with an awful lot of facts and tidbits about the opera scene at the time. It’s part comedy, part music appreciation.  It opens with Leoncavallo (Alasdair Buchan) at home with his wife Berthe (Lisa-Anne Wood), cursing about Puccini’s latest work, which is drawn ...

Taking the moral high ground: Super Duper Close Up @Yardtheatre

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In Super Duper Close Up, Jess Latowicki is seven minutes early to a meeting. It’s a meeting that could give her work. I never arrive early to meetings so I figured this is a chance to find out what early arrivers do to pass the time. During this time, between taking the moral high ground for arriving early, she starts talking about her life and where it’s gone all wrong. It’s theatre we can all relate to. Funny, moving and often bizarre, it’s currently playing at The Yard Theatre. Latowicki with her robotic-like rapid fire delivery often feels like she’s a stand up comedian talking about her life. She gives phrases like “think pieces” and “scrolling” specific hand gestures so that they stick in your mind. Everything is filmed and projected. It’s like you’re trapped inside in an Instagram story or someone’s live feed on social media. At one point she moves into the audience. Then she takes someone to show her detailed beauty regime. A regime that’s described in French as it sounds more ...

Live couples therapy: Tonight I’m Gonna Be The New Me @sohotheatre

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Tonight I’m Gonna Be The New Me , currently playing at the Soho Theatre is a theatrical endurance piece, both for the performers and the audience as it attempts to describe a relationship, or a relationship re imagined. It should be part of Soho Theatre’s programme of weird shit to see in the West End. It’s alienating, amusing and infuriating. So depending on your frame of mind you’re going to love it or think you are trapped. I suspect the intention is to feel both. Thankfully it only lasts a little over an hour.