You must see… The Invisible Man, Jack Studio Theatre

Alt-science fiction writer, Christopher Priest once wrote a novel called The Glamour which argued a perfectly logical basis for invisibility: that person that never gets served at the bar, the ones you bump into in the street… some people just have less noticeability than others and the logical conclusion is that some people you just would never be able to see. Priest is a huge fan of HG Wells and Derek Webb’s adaptation of The Invisible Man would no doubt find his favour as whilst, like Wells, he entertains and educates through counter-factuality as well as the glamourous force of his staging.

Webb is clearly in love with his source material and this is The Invisible Man as written by the ghost of Ray Cooney after a drunken dinner party at Vic and Bob’s in which they contacted the ghost of Will Hay and Moore Marriott. You want proof? Well, the theme from Oh Mr Porter was played at the beginning and end of the play! I rest my case.

This Invisible Man – let’s call him TIM – races by at breakneck speed and shows how three can become fifteen as our three intrepid performers take on many roles with uncanny poise and alacrity. Director Kate Bannister takes so many risks but it all works seamlessly and hilariously – hand on heart, I don’t think I’ve laughed this much in a theatre all year.

Mr Parker being positively protean! All photos Davor@The Ocular Creative

Now, a large part of that is the sight of Matthew Parker as brassy barmaid, Mrs Hall, a lady of rural Sussex origins who never gives a sucker an even break and is of a very particular purpose, repeating her mantra “rely on it…”. Matthew’s timing is impeccable as is his bumkin accent for Mrs Hall as she “supports” herself in a Les Dawson fashion and later captures the naked Invisible Man by the only part of his lower body she can hold on to.

Matthew gives a very moving performance in that he, literally, moves the scenery be it Mrs Halls bar of the Reverend Bunting moving his garden gate to follow the action as Dr Cuss (Scott Oswald) relates his extraordinary story. The shifts in setting are also signalled by the road signs at the side of the stage, a gentle pricking of the fourth wall which draws the audience in on the joke without disturbing the atmosphere of earnest mystery.

"You ain't seen me right?" Shaun Chambers

These three actors really put in a shift and, in addition to playing TIM, Shaun Chambers is also PC Jaffers, PC Fyffes and Police Chief Colonel Adye all of whom look remarkably alike to the untrained eye but who are, quite clearly, in completely different locations. But it is as the mysterious Experimental Investigator Griffith that we, erm, see him most. Griffith has attained invisibility through a series of experiments and is now in hiding trying to find his way back to the visible world. He starts off as a sympathetic scientist and ends up as an anarchist, intent on taking revenge on the establishment who failed to recognise his work and provide the proper support.

In much the same way as the Martians attacked Woking, gaining revenge for Wells who may have made an enemy or two when he lived there, the Invisible Man was his proxy for writing some of the wrongs in a country dedicated to researching weapons of mass destruction. Here though his targets are very contemporary ones – bankers, the political elite, all our favourite people.

Scott Oswald finds his Marriott

Scott Oswald, who may have been channelling Moore Marriott directly as Marvel, the man of the road, also plays Will Hay a porter and Fearenside, who works in Mrs Hall’s pub. Marvel starts to help Griffith as his money runs out and the scientist turns to the dark side, stealing to keep himself funded and robbing banks as his morality becomes less tangible than his corporeal form.

He ends up seeking out a fellow scientist, Dr Kemp (Mr Parker again) and attempts to force him into helping him… The play picks up pace as the character changes happen so fast, you’d swear there were at least four actors on stage at any one time in the breathless conclusion.

Kate Bannister fits a huge story into the play and manages the balance between music hall fun and trace elements of the original more serious intent. Webb also deserves much credit for bringing out comic flavours that don’t detract from the adventure.

The three actors work superbly as a team and tackle so much variety – what a challenge for Matthew Parker’s first acting gig after over a decade as a director? They all pass with flying colours.

IThankYouTheatre rating: **** The perfect Christmas fare from the Jack Brockley Theatre directed and played at speed by an energised trio-troop who fill out every part with comic conviction. The spirits of Hay and Marriott walked amongst us tonight but, as with the main character, we could only feel them, not see them.

Props to William Ingham’s lighting design, especially innovative for the denouement… Karl Swinyard’s design is also a wonder transporting us back over a century and at least 50 miles south geographically.

The Invisible Man plays at the Jack until 4^th January – see it if you can, there may be returns if you’re very lucky!

Poetry knight… The Alliterative Morte Arthure, St James’ Church

This was an evening of candle-lit re-connection with the medieval spirit of both location and subject matter; we started off sat in our pews – nursing complimentary port - and ended up standing spellbound following the three performers as they paced this ancient space playing out this eternal chivalric drama. It’s no mean feat to bring archaic language and sentiment to life but Michael Smith achieves is with a mix of painstaking diligence and pure passion. This is not to be confused with earnestness, as his work here as with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is always infused with wit and a sense of mischief: this is how these stories can best be experienced, as live entertainment.

Poetry performed in public, much like silent film, finds a new dimension with the combination of audience, venue and live accompaniment, here provided by Jon Banks, a multi-instrumental medievalist who is a musical director at the Globe Theatre as well as being a noted scholar. Jon added flavour and support to the narrative sat amongst his lute, dulcimer, trumpet, percussion and, crucially, a “rain stick”!

The poem was performed by Michael Smith, Alex Young and Stuart Handysides, the three carrying torches to illustrate their scripts in the low light of St James’ , built early in the 12^th Century. The church is only open four times a year and looked magical with freshly restored walls flickering in the candlelight, shadows cast over the artefacts of so much faith and hope.

Alex Young, Michael Smith,  and Stuart Handysides

The church pre-dates the poem by two centuries but not the complicated history of the Arthurian legends which, dating from the 6^th Century were first encoded by Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1138) and which were embellished with fresh characters such as Lancelot, Percival and Yvain by French poet, Chrétien de Troyes in the later 12^th Century. The Alliterative poem was penned by an unknown author and dates from about 1400 and adds the Roundtable and other elements to Monmouth’s story.

Michael has been translating the poem from its Lincolnshire dialect for some two years and the results will be published in 2020 strikingly illustrated by his original linocuts. Tonight, was the premier of the work in a theatrical setting directed by Mike Ashman, a former director of the Royal Opera House who knows a thing or two about the dramatic dynamics of myths and legends.

Mr Ashman had the players using every corner of St James, from the pulpit to the altar and they walked up and down the transept throughout the performance: theatre in the round that surrounded the audience, surprising us with action and unfolding meaning. The poem is definitely a "PG" and during key battles the players walked up and down the aisle waving their torches like swords, remarkably effective and quite startling when a bowel is pierced or a sword enters a skull mere inches from where you are standing!

Michael Smith 

After Michael Smith had set the scene and explained the background to the story, the play began with a rousing performance of early 19^th Century song, All Around My Hat (I Will Wear the Green Willow), as the players sang their way the length of the church before the verses began.

This story has some less familiar episodes to the well-trodden paths of recent books and films… Arthur travels to Rome to meet the challenge of Emperor Lucius who has sent emissaries demanding fealty. Arthur has always been apart of this island’s self-definition and you only have to glance at 12^th Century politics to understand the drivers for this war on mainland Europe.

Queen Guinevere is left in the care of Sir Mordred (Arthur’s nephew) as he heads off to battle and whilst he may be victorious the seeds of future defeat in the longer war for Albion are sown… Arthur’s crusade is a "just" one dedicated to overthrowing a pagan Emperor but war makes him cruel and he levels Metz with excessive force. His dreams are troubling and he fears his own pride - "surquedry" - may doom him as he looks beyond the fight for independence to becoming Holy Roman Emperor.

Sir Gawain by contrast is shown to be impeccably chivalrous earning the respect of even his deadliest foes. Arthur is not an inflexible leader, he can learn from his knights as well as from experience and dreams...

Jon Banks

All builds up to a rousing, battling finish as the body count accelerates and Arthur defines his nobility against the odds by deed and word. He has but scores of his knights against Mordred’s thousands, but right as well as might is on his side.

Whilst Arthur’s story is so familiar in terms of action what Mr Smith has done is to explain how it was felt by Britons in the 1400s… an entirely different age in which the concept of self was so different and yet in which essential human values were perhaps not so different?

All three leads gave forceful performances Mr Young so firm of voice, Mr Handysides resolute and fluent with Mr Smith leading the line with intensity and conviction; as he phased across the centuries talking the medieval walk with relish. At the finish the cold, un-heated space was warmed by an extended ovation; St James’ had been animated again as had the memory of the Once and Future King; performative history from the medieval mind-set.

IThankYou Theatre Rating: ***** A thrilling glimpse inside the medieval mind and a new appreciation of the importance of Arthurian legend from one of its oldest, most accomplished sources.

The Alliterative Morte Arthure is published in September 2020 and you can pre-order from the publisher, Unbound, website.

Here’s to more medieval adventures in 2020!

One of Michael Smith's linocuts for the new book

The ties that bind… Thread, The Hope Theatre

A father with dementia, slowly disappearing in front of his two daughters who know that one day all his inconvenience will be as nothing compared to his absence and then, out of the blue, the threat of losing him in a way they never expected.

Freya Alderson’s play is post-Weinstein, Spacey and now even a prince… it addresses the issue of historical sex abuse not just from the point of view of moral and reputational damage but also the impact on the alleged perpetrator’s family. It traces the unfolding accusations through their reactions as the accelerant of social media brings the family to the brink with father oblivious.

Peter Gibson (Eric Carte) is an established star of stage and screen and the play opens with him holding his Oscar and reliving his acceptance speech before he shrinks in front of us to the bewildered state of advanced dementia. He is looked after by his daughters, the eldest, Vivian (Christina Balmer) is an actress on the verge of a major breakthrough and academy award nomination whilst the youngest, Margo (Maya-Nika Bewley) is a kind of Brit-Kardashian, a social media star, famous for being part of this dynasty and seemingly young beyond her years.

Christina Balmer

The women have different mothers and are a half-generation apart in age and outlook; Vivian was almost a mother to Margo as her mother’s marriage broke down whilst the latter has no experience of the years when the family struggled, Peter yet to establish himself and his first wife – the love of his life – working three jobs.

There’s a lot to unpack in Alderson’s script which is ambitious enough to try and explain how successful men operate(d) and how the women in their lives are complicit or compromised. Margo is a spoilt brat on the opening half, challenging everything without having the answers – the luxury of the younger sibling (trust me, I am that child). Vivian has the success and bearing, seeing herself as the main carer and the one who must steady the family ship. Her agent – and Peter’s long-time friend, Ian (Christopher Jenner-Cole) – is almost part of the family, a former actor who was helped a lot by Peter’s patronage. Margo teases him and persuades him to do a line or two of cocaine as inhibitions are lost and deep wounds are exposed.

Margo and Vivian argue as sister’s do but then a tweet arrives – projected on a screen that doubles as a portrait of Peter and wife Number One – in which a woman has accused Peter of abusing her. Lines are very quickly drawn with Viv all too ready to defend her Dad and Margo all too ready to believe the worst. I felt this transition was slightly contrived as the whole affair suddenly provides one with a purpose as it threatens to derail the other’s career, but that’s drama.

Christopher Jenner-Cole and Maya-Nika Bewley

The family must now not only decide on how to manage the crisis and whether their “tribe” is going to survive at all. The play picks up a fearsome head of pace as the depths of ill-feeling are finally revealed and the interplay between Bewley and Balmer is spectacular as the cliff edge approaches.

Eric Carte is superbly sad as the forlorn Peter and gives us glimpses of the glorious, confident and arrogant man he once was through flashback and the occasional sliver of coherence – it’s so poignant and a character you write off at your peril.

Christina Balmer and Maya-Nika Bewley also offer compelling performances – half-sisters who are more alike than they care to admit and Christopher Jenner-Cole is charismatic with his character still left in the wake of this powerful family turmoil.

Veronica Quilligan has marshalled her players well and the pace never lets up. Riveting!

IThankYou Theatre rating: **** Complex theatre that packs in a lot but always engages in a race to confront the reality of responsibility beyond the ties of family.

Thread plays at the Hope until 7^th December, booking details on the theatre’s website.

Eric Carte

Justice through knowledge - Different from the Others, White Bear Theatre

“Love for one of the same sex is no less pure or noble than for one of the opposite… Those that say otherwise come only from ignorance and bigotry.” Dr Magnus Hirschfield

I’ve just spent the most entertaining evening with Connie Veidt, Anita Berber and Reinhold Shunzel… it was a riot as you’d expect from these Weimar legends – Connie was divine, Anita so intense and Reinhold? Well, you know Reinhold… It was quite the party and yet there was a quiet but determined doctor in the room who really caught my attention.

In 1919 Richard Oswald directed Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others), the first film explicitly about homosexuality, funded by “sexologist” Dr Magnus Hirschfield, leader of the German Homosexual Emancipation Movement and head of Institut für Sexualwissenschaft.

After the Great War, Weimar Germany abandoned censorship allowing unprecedented freedom for artistic expression at a time when a new openness sprang across parts of Europe with, as playwright Claudio Macor says in his notes, love between men briefly being openly acceptable in Moscow and St Petersburg. Yet, even as the cabaret began in Berlin, Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code still made homosexuality illegal and contributed to the loss and wreckage of so many innocent lives. Shockingly it wasn't repealed until 1994 (after decades of amendments) which shows, if nothing else, how incredibly advanced the film was and also how brave.

 Jeremy Booth. All photos by Andreas Lambis

This is a remarkable film and one that survives only in partial form: that it exist at all given what was to come is all the more extraordinary… which is precisely where Mr Macor comes in with this passionate and smartly constructed play about the making of and sentiment behind Anders als die Andern.

The play is dedicated to Dr Magnus Hirschfield and pays due respect to this extraordinary figure who is so well played by Jeremy Booth who presents him as both wise and driven. Hirschfield was particularly affected by the suicide of a young soldier he was treating in 1896, here represented by a figure called Klaus (Simon Stallard), who cannot reconcile his desires with the pressure from society, carrying a shame of "that which nearly strangled my heart". Klaus and the Doctor are almost lovers and the death drives the Doctor to fund a film to help prevent further needless selbstmord.

There’s so much detail in the play and yet Macor’s script – and Jenny Eastop’s pacey and precise direction - moves the narrative forward with rounded characters all reflecting the legends of the remarkable film makers. Richard Oswald (Christopher Sherwood) is determined to make an entertainment as well as education – as a confrontation with Hirschfield makes clear - and there’s so much respect in the play for his achievement.

Christopher Sherwood

The play also delights in introducing the stars who silent film watchers will feel they know well yet these were formative times for the three future stars of film and they were only just starting the transition from the stage.

The notorious Anita Berber (Beth Eyre), who perfected the cross-dressed style while Marlene was still at school and wrote a book, Dances of Vice, Horror, & Ecstasy, is addicted to cocaine and Conrad Veidt (Jordan Alexander). Unfortunately for her, Connie is married and can no longer play away… Jordan has the toughest gig in playing Veidt – he has the looks but is surely way too healthy! He does very well in replicating Veidt’s crucial scene in the film, which I won’t detail… you must see it! Benjamin Garrison’s Reinhold Shunzel is suitably outrageous, dragged up and drugged up, tempting Anita with a cocktail of chloroform and ether mixed in a bowl with rose petals… do not try this at home kids! These are all people you would love to party with and I doubt they’re lilies gilded in even the slightest way!

Beth Eyre *is* Anita Berber

Kurt Giese (Simon Stallard) is a version of original star Kurt Sivers who played the young violinist who takes up lessons with Veidt’s character before the two fall in love. In the play Kurt falls for the Doctor and is an extension of his true passion that ultimately has to be denied: does he love the character played by Kurt of the actor himself and does the actor love the writer or the man?

Dr Hirschfield is able to place his responsibilities to educate above his own happiness subjugating his desires in service to the greater good and whilst the play diverges from the actuality as it progresses, it does so in the cause of illuminating the central themes. The Doctor is almost possessed with modern sensibilities but that’s all the better to counterpoint the sexual crisis of the time and, for much of recent history.

Benjamin Garrison

Hirschfeld played himself in the film as he tried to explain sexuality as natural and no reason for approbation: “… he is not to blame for his orientation. It is not wrong, nor should it be a crime…” Unfortunately, after a year of screenings Europe-wide, censorship was re-introduced and things were only to get harder as Germany drifted towards tragedy; first the books and films were burned and people were to follow.

Macor’s play works, much as the film, by informing and entertaining; as with his earlier biography of William Haines he is adept at bringing characters to life and very strong on the romance and steadfast friendships which enable truth to survive in the face of oppressive ignorance. As Hirschfeld said: “You have to keep living; live to change the prejudices... …restore the honour of this man… and all those who came before him, and all those to come after him. Justice through knowledge!”

Different from the Others plays at the White Bear until 16^th November and I would heartily recommend it to all, you don't need to know the film to understand the eternal truths on show: get those tickets while they’re hot.

IThankYou Theatre rating: **** An astonishing story told with fierce sincerity and economy with a super cast who succeed in convincing as film stars and as elements of the most human of stories.. Go see it and wonder how brave this film was in 1919 and, indeed, why its story remains so vital a century later.

All photos by Andreas Lambis

The killing cure... Fast, Park Theatre

“What a doctor really wants is a cynical patient, someone who will question their pedigree…”

Theatre can transport you and it can educate and unsettle you and even in a Thursday afternoon matinee the story of ‘Dr’ Linda Hazzard and her kill or cure quackery was deeply disturbing thanks to four superb performances and the simple truth of it all.

This is a horror story and all the more so for it being based on actuality. Also, at a time when people can believe there’s no such thing as climate change or that Donald Trump is a proper president and that Brexit is the cure to all ills – starving ourselves of favourable business terms to set our country “free”… it’s instructive to watch an ignorant ideologue at work. Perhaps the disgraced Dr Andrew Wakefield is the best modern comparison for his incredibly damaging assertion that vaccinations cause autism; his work has been completely de-bunked and yet he’s still out there preaching and has single-handedly led to the re-emergence of measles.

Hazzard was an unqualified “doctor” noted for her extreme and unscientific fasting treatments at her "sanatorium", Wilderness Heights, in Olalla, Washington. Under her “care” some forty patients died and in 1912 she was finally convicted for the murder of a wealthy British woman, Claire Williamson, whose sister, Dora, narrowly escaped the same fate being just 60 pounds when she was rescued by a relative.

Jordon Stevens and Natasha Crowley (photo Manuel Harlan)

It’s an extraordinary story and Kate Barton’s play does it justice by focusing on the two sisters as well as the mindset of their “doctor”; what made Hazzard believe she was acting in anyone’s best interest? Did she simply want the cache of medical practice, was this Munchausen syndrome by proxy or was she just a psychopath and criminal – she was found to have forged Williamson's will and stolen most of her valuables; a common criminal.

Caroline Lawrie is superb as Hazzard, portraying her as a narcissist determined to prove everyone wrong and to inflict her ideas on the unsuspecting. She has the unbending passion of a cult leader and the force of personality to dominate victims seemingly for their own good or her gratification for, as the quote at the top reveals she relished a challenge and the chance to show her superior mind.

Into her orbit comes two wealthy English travellers, the Williamson sisters Dora (Natasha Cowley who I’d last seen in the excellent Anomaly at the Old Red Lion Theatre) and Claire (Jordon Stevens) who read Hazzard’s book of nonsense, Fasting for the Cure of Disease (1908). There’s good interaction between the two; bickering familiarities and sisterly sideswipes… they’re good fun, Dora the more worldly-wise and witty, with Claire the sweetly-earnest hypochondriac with her “tipped back uterus”.

Caroline Lawrie, Jordon Stevens and Natasha Crowley (photo Manuel Harlan)

They are soon under Hazzard’s spell though as she attacks their faith in medical Doctors: “how very typical of a man to recommend that kind of nonsense to a woman…” Her use of this proto-feminist line is not so much in support of the “free spirited”, corset free sister but just building herself up against the “fake news” of the established male, medical elite.

Soon she has the sisters drugged and separated, Dora subjected to repeated enemas and both starved of protean as they grow too weak to think, move and defend themselves. Luckily Hazzard has not gone unnoticed and a journalist, Horace Cayton Jnr (Daniel Norford) is on her case… but can he break through in time to save the women?

Spoilers ahead…

Dora lived to testify against Hazzard and the bad “Doctor” was jailed for her sisters and other deaths in 1912. She was released on parole in December 1915 and the following year Governor Ernest Lister incredibly gave her a full pardon. It is suggested in the play that her friendship with his wife had played a part and she was able to start again in New Zealand. Poetic justice finally caught up with Hazzard in 1938 when she died during a fast to cure herself… finally doomed by her idiotic ideas.

Daniel Norford (photo Manuel Harlan)

Kate Valentine’s direction brings out the full flavours of Barton’s script and she maximises the narrative tension as we go from quackery to murder. Cowley and Stevens are heart-wrenchingly convincing as the sisters incapacitated and slowly losing their minds as their life of forced out of them: it’s quite uncomfortable to watch their shift from vibrant youth and very impressive physical work from both.

Daniel Norford presents the heroic figure we need amongst this darkness and Caroline Lawrie not only makes us believe in her “Doctor” but also makes us doubt ourselves from time to time; surely the true mark of a sociopathic narcissist. Takes a real pro to go to the heart of darkness and still present a rounded human being who can, fleetingly, gain our sympathy…

Caroline Lawrie

IThankYou Rating **** Macabre and harrowing, Fast never lets its subjects down and is compelling theatre which leaves you wondering how many others have suffered in the name of people who just believe they know best.

Fast is a production of Digital Drama and has already enjoyed sell-out shows at the Brighton and Edinburgh Fringe as well as being shortlisted for Best New Play Award 2018 by New Writing South. One to catch!

Fast runs at the Park Theatre – a lovely venue just around the corner from Finsbury Park with two stages and great coffee – until 9th November and booking details are on the website.

The Jokers… The House of Yes, Hope Theatre

“A person gets their heart set on a certain thing…”

Funny, sexy, violent, frightening and unsettling, Matthew Parker’s last in-house production as Artistic Director for The Hope, had everything I love about his work. You grab a drink downstairs in the bar of this famous venue and walk upstairs into a performance area that even smells different from the world below. 85 minutes later you crack a twisted wistful smile as you walk out trying to process the many layers just unpeeled in front of your very eyes…

There’s a dark magic here and a team of performers who are utterly within their roles – there’s no room to hide as audience or performer with the players standing amongst us as once again, Mr Parker makes use of every inch of the Hope.

This being a last hurrah it was fitting that three stars from three of my favourite Parker performances feature strongly; Colette Eaton from Her Aching Heart, Fergus Leathem from Brimstone & Treacle and Bart Lambert from Thrill Me: the Leopold and Loeb Story.

Colette Eaton and Bart Lambert  - photos from lhphotoshots

Colette Eaton prowled the stage tonight with malicious confidence as Jackie-O, the twisted twin sister of Marty (Leathem) with a history of psychiatric disorders, medicated almost to the point of normal behaviour but still obsessed with the death of JFK. She makes me think of a certain character currently on screens played by Joaquin Phoenix, only her Jackie has more menace and less make-up. She owns the role with a smile and a laugh that Clown Prince of Crime would envy and has such assurance and control that her primal screams of rage all the more astonishing.

In the intimacy of the Hope you are tempted to reach out and comfort an actor in seeming distress, that’s how completely you are part of their world and I felt for the twin’s younger brother, Anthony, played by Bart Lambert as a sympathetic sociopath all of his own. This is indeed one strange family and Bart has such intense expressiveness and quivering febrility imbuing his character with fear and cunning: at once worn down by and revelling in the family house rules of "do as thy wilt shall be the whole of the law".

It’s Thanksgiving eve and there’s a hurricane blowing outside; the least pathetic fallacy ever – no one’s getting out of this House unchanged.

Mother knows best... Gill King - lhphotoshots

Mother knows best of course, and murderous matriarch Mother Pascal (Gill King, classy, imperious, Cruella DC...) is the wicked witch of Washington who dominates and enables the free-roaming morality of her children. Marty is the one trying to build an existence outside of her centrifugal cruelty and brings home his fiancée, Lesly (Kaya Bucholc, so energetically commited as the play's most identifiable character; experiencing The House through our eyes), a “civilian”, a working class girl from Pennsylvania who has no name just a lot of character especially when faced with the family’s desperate need to pull Marty back in. It's a change of pace for Fergus Leathem after Brimstone, and he plays the almost-straight man to his family's sick jokes with subtle confidence.

"I’ve never even met anyone who’s been to Pennsylvania, much less been from Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania is just this state that gets in your way when you have to go someplace else."

Like antibodies the Pascals work on Lesly’s alien force; Mother through aggression, Anthony by hitting on her and Jackie-O who uses the most powerful lure of all for her twin…

Wendy Macleod’s play resonates on so many levels right now as, thirty odd years after it was written, we have another family running the Whitehouse and who, like the Pascal’s want all of the Kennedy trappings without the political conscience. Jackie-O dresses up as Jackie Kennedy complete with fake blood and JFK brains on her dress; no more horrific than the way reality is turning out. Take notes Ivanka…

Kaya Bucholc - lhphotoshots

The entitled psychopathy is very 2019 as, from all around the world, might is increasingly right and Lesly, despite her spirit, is just another intelligent and reasonable person who is damaged by the Pascal fruits. But, hey, they may be a little “crazy”, but they’re the ones with the power.

The House of Yes is mad good fun with a hundred zingers in the text all delivered with deathly deadpan by Parker’s posse of perfect performers. It’s a fitting farewell for the remarkable Mr Parker – almost a “greatest hits” collection of the funny, peculiar and thought-provoking themes that run though his work like a bitter-sweet Blackpool through a stick of rock. Here’s to the next one but meanwhile DO NOT miss this black swansong.

A tip of the hat too Stage Manager, Laurel Marks who made the lighting and sound design work so well on the night - the sixth performer on stage so no pressure! As usual the Hope was transformed this time by Rachael Ryan's design along with Lucia Sanchez-Roldan's lighting design and Simon Arrowsmith's sound. An in-house team that obviously likes to say yes.

Colette Eaton and Fergus Leathem  - photos from lhphotoshots

IThankYou rating: ***** “A Play for Today with some stunning swerves and quite simply one of the finest displays of acting and direction I’ve seen all year.”

The House of Yes runs until 26^th October, full details on the Hope website.

“Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to baste the turkey and hide the kitchen knives…”

Premier league lurking from Ms Eaton.

The way we were... Cherie – My Struggle, Hen & Chickens Theatre

“People ask me if the play is a hatchet-job. And it is, but with Cherie wielding the hatchet.  A QC who specialises in libel law came to see a preview of the show just in case anything in it might upset Cherie. He said the only thing that would upset her is that she wasn’t invited.” Lloyd Evans

I met Cherie Blair on two occasions at the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards in the mid-2000s when she and Tony were on the final stretch of their amazing decade of power. She was charming, charismatic and much respected by the legal audience despite their questions about Guantanamo Bay… here was a top-class professional who just happened to be married to a Prime Minister and one who had taken his country to war on the most dubious of pretexts.

As Cherie – expertly played by Mary Ryder – explains, the war was supported by both main parties and in the ensuing Labour landslide of 2005, the party got 400 seats and over 19 million people voted for parties that had supported the Iraq War. In the demographic wilderness of post-Referendum Britain that’s a huge mandate… 19 million, well, that’s a lot more than 17.4 million isn’t it.

Were things simpler in 2003? They were certainly different and Lloyd Evans play does an excellent job of giving us the authentic voice of a woman right at the centre of the New Labour project; possibly the most “targeted” spouse in British political history?

Mary Ryder is superb as Cherie and sensibly avoids impersonating her subject whilst providing us with a realistic reading of her life in power and, indeed before. Cherie is the daughter of Liverpudlian actor Tony Booth and in the play her relationship is described as distant as he leaves her and her sister with their mother whilst off in London working, looking for work or, as she discovers, “crumpeting”. Booth was a serial crumpeteer and was married four times with his Liverpool family only finding out about his new child – their half-sister – via an announcement he put in the Crosby Gazette.

Mary Ryder is Cherie Blair  (Photos courtesy of Conrad Blakemore)

Cherie was a high-achiever from an early age and wonders if this was down to her desire to impress her father or, more likely, her own will to win. Gaining a law degree from the LSE she quickly progressed to Barrister and was a QC in her thirties. She met Tony Blair in her early days in Chambers and they resolved to pursue a legal and political career – both standing for Labour in the early 80s with Tony eventually getting elected leaving Cherie to continue her rise in the law.

The play raises the question of whether we got the right one as MP and then PM… who knows but Cherie was certainly the better barrister but, as she says: “victory turns you into the person the voters want you to be” and has there ever been a better channeller of public mood than Tony Blair?

There’s lots of fact and corrections in the play – of course Cherie curtseyed to the Queen she was a Queen’s Counsel after all! - and many funny digs at the likes of Alistair Campbell and Diane Abbott – “who was the first black woman MP, she may have mentioned it to you…” Jeremy Corbyn is also there – good to see in his constituency – with Cherie pointing out that he was right about the banks… and leaving gaps for us to fill in the rest of her likely opinion.

Cherie was “gut Labour”, brought up into the faith in ultimately humble circumstances, her Dad of galivanting and her Mum working nights at the chippy to make ends meet, but Tony chose Labour from a middle-class background. Neil Kinnock was also gut Labour and we know where Jeremy came from…

Gordon Brown missed his chance to line himself up as leader in waiting by refusing to stand after Kinnock resigned and the tragedy of John’s Smith’s early death left Blair no option but to go for the top spot himself: he could no longer trust Brown to lead.

It’s a fascinating perspective on a time that feels longer ago than it should be, an era when the tabloid press was more powerful than even now, pointing their cameras at the new “first lady” only to pick holes in her appearance and her choices… We get the press we deserve and the politicians we vote for; Cameron channelled much as Blair did and now… now we’re in a frenzy of self-loathing.

15 years ago the talk of the Tabs was Carol Caplin, Cherie’s personal fitness trainer and style guru… a simpler time but one in which the bitterness began and after the financial crash on Brown’s watch, never stopped.

IThankYou Rating: **** A wow at Edinburgh, Cherie now comes “home” to Islington, the perfect time for reminders and regrets and a superbly energised performance from Mary Ryder. Cherie… we thought we knew you; we understand you that little bit better now!

Cherie  plays at the Hen and Chickens Theatre until Saturday 14th September 2019 – please grab a ticketwhile you can and Mr Corbyn, you can walk there from your allotment!

There's also a website for Cherie - My Struggle with more details; Alistair's probably scouring it as we speak...

Alternative Britain… Jade City, The Bunker

As a child in Liverpool I once witnessed an Orange march, not as big as these things go across the water, but still my first exposure to the religious divide in England’s biggest catholic city. We had different schools and, in my time, hardly mixed as boys.  That’s pretty much all I’ve got by way of understanding day-to-day life in Ulster with any catholic relatives I have living in Dublin, a city that, from my brief experience, has something of the same spirit as my hometown.

Alice Malseed’s play is therefore a challenge to my English view of Belfast, ingrained assumptions about the life there and the lazy thoughts that are currently being exposed about any ideas of a level playing field… Like the central characters Sas (Brendan Quinn) and Monty (Barry Calvert) I grew up slowly, happily clinging on to the childish fantasy worlds of DC and Marvel comics with my mate Phil until we both realised the game was literally up and we evolved into men in suits. There’s no such prospect for Sas and Monty and they’re morally and mentally arrested by their environment; potential smothered by circumstance.

The play begins with much humour as the two lads crack in-jokes, bantering in accents so broad that subtitles are projected on the wall behind – whether or not this was their intended function, I could make out most of what was being said, it had the effect of making the lads seem more constrained by the larger environment. Like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the Sas and Monty are destined to play out their lives like so much predictive text and this realisation is as horrific to the audience as the characters themselves.

We were kings when we were young says Sas at one point, reflecting on the invulnerability of childhood when they’d race around on bikes, or, in later youth, scam drinks from the local working men’s’ club. They sit in their local bar calling out all the characters around them, the reasons why they’re in their drinking, the damage that has been done… but it’s familiar, re-assuring.

Barry Calvert and Brendan Quinn (photographs by  Ali Wright)

The action is set in a boxing ring, not just because the boys both used to box but because they still play The Game, imagining themselves in shared fantasies whether they’re in Cuba fighting the revolution, involved in daring raids or even flying over their home as seagulls. Yet cracks are starting to show and Sas is finding it harder to leave reality pointing out that seagulls can’t fly so high, Monty’s face dropping in child-like disappointment.

They also role-play past events including an evening involving a local girl called Katie… there’s something here that disturbs both with Sas saddened and Monty in denial; he looks the tougher of the two and yet there’s something he’s not able to face. Here in their imaginary boxing ring they are finally, painfully going to confront each other and their issues.

Since the Good Friday Agreement, more lives have been lost to suicide in Northern Ireland than during the Troubles and around a third of people live on or below the bread line. Jade City highlights exactly how alone these men are with little chance of finding the support they need or a decent job. Working in shops, bars and supermarkets is difficult for them both to hold down and the Job Seekers Allowance is there to reward those with rich imaginations and patience who are willing to delude themselves that this is all there could be: and who can blame them.

One of them can begin the process of breaking free but it’s almost too cruel on the one that can’t as they are all each other has. Jade City is one of their local take-aways and much like the Emerald City, it can’t save you unless you save yourself, if, that is, you are able. Social services, mental health, and well-intentioned governments… much like the Wizard, are almost entirely fictional.

I loved the dialect and the text projection: Sas and Monty aren’t dead, at least not yet. Props too director Katherine Nesbitt for creating a very visceral play that pulls no punches literally or figuratively; so well written by Alice Malseed, we don’t see what’s coming, lost in the boys’ game until the very last.

IThankYou Theatre rating: **** A terrific two-hander that creates a rich world in which many of us would be crushed; a play that will stay in my thoughts for some time.

Jade City plays at The Bunker until Saturday 21st September – tickets available at the box office and online here.

Polar opposites… Shackleton’s Carpenter, Jermyn Street Theatre

"Everyone working well except the carpenter. I shall never forget him in this time of strain and stress…" Sir Ernest Shackleton’s diary, 1915

The story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s epic attempt to cross the Antarctic is enshrined in our culture helped by the amazing film recorded by Frank Hurley, later released as South in 1919. The crew faced almost impossible odds when their ship became lodged in ice and Shackleton’s leadership in rescuing all of his crew after an epic land crossing and harrowing open-boat journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia is the stuff of legend.

Great British pluck and the best of us overcoming the odds it may have been but without the alterations made to the lifeboats by Shackleton’s carpenter, Harry McNish, they would not have succeeded. Of the 24 Polar Medals awarded to the crew of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, none was given to poor Harry and as the officers and scientists enjoyed a heroes’ cruise home, the chippy along with other rank and file had to pay his own way. Hands and therefore his livelihood ruined by his exertions in the great white silence, McNish ended up in Wellington, New Zealand, down and out and living in the harbour, sleeping under tarpaulin.

Gail Louw’s bitter-sweet play has our hero trying to make sense of it all near the end of his life as he drinks himself into a reverie imagining visits from his old crew mates, The Boss himself and friends and enemies.

Malcolm Rennie. All photograhs from Anna Urik

Malcolm Rennie is exceptional and gives his all as the embittered yet stubbornly passionate harry and pulls the audience deep into this ice-cold world of polar traumatic stress. It’s a very physical performance and Rennie leaves absolutely nothing on the stage as he forces Harry to confront his demons in the face of his own fears. Sometimes it feels like he is tearing the words out of his mouth as his spits disdain at The Boss or his enemies like Captain Lees and Worsley.

McNish respected Shackleton but also disagreed with him on too many occasions. He was right about the boats but maybe held too much of a grudge when The Boss shot his famous cat Mrs Chippy, who would have had no chance of survival after the Endurance was crushed by ice. Shackleton, as the note above suggests, found him difficult but did concede he had "grit and spirit".

You’re left marvelling at these men’s accomplishment and wondering why the Empire didn’t take such good of the men after the heroic deeds inspired a nation at war and much in need of heroes. Perhaps also the character that stubbornly refuses to curl up and die also meant that these men were to fight – without each other they were surely doomed and any petty concerns should have been cast aside… but the line of command had been crossed and that was that.

Colonel Macklin, the physician on Shackleton’s expedition later said “...of all the men in the party no-one more deserved recognition than the old carpenter.... I would regard the withholding of the Polar Medal from McNeish as a grave injustice.”

But Harry was with us tonight in the force of Malcolm Rennie’s performance and I would urge everyone to go and watch this master craftsman at work! Tony Milner's direction is intrepid too, pushing his performer to the limits and taking many chances with so many "invisible" characters who, in Rennie's hands spring so substantially to life.

Shackleton’s Carpenter plays at the Jermyn Street Theatre until 16^th August and goes on a tour of the UK and Ireland tour in the Autumn – details on their website.

I also wrote about Frank Hurley's film, South (1919) which features such incredible footage of the expedition.

IThankYou Theatre rating: ***** A blistering one-man show that drags us through the grit and grind of polar enmities that haunt this brave man till the very end: you will leave the theatre reeling.

 

Frank Hurley's shot of the other 27 members of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition

Hull on Earth… Starved, The Hope Theatre

“You stop having dreams don’t you, when real life keeps on slapping you in the face, down and down…”

There’s a surreal moment near the end of this play when the lighting flicks on an off and the actors move around the central space like two people filmed in stop motion on a CCTV or, more accurately, two rats in a laboratory. The Hope’s promethean stage has a “room” delineated by string, rope and ribbons in which Michael Black (The Lad) and Alana Connaughton (The Lass) spend almost all of their time: they’re right in front of us and yet that thin barrier holds throughout their mesmeric double-header. At one point The Lass looked out of the “window” at the folk next door and I strained to see what she was seeing…

Starved tells of two youngsters on the run from a crime that only gradually becomes apparent. They’re exiled from friends and family, trying to avoid the law in a miserable bedsit on one of Hull’s most unforgiving estates – you can imagine this scenario all over the country and the human dynamics take you away from any knee-jerk political reading. Universal credit gets a mention but only in the context of just one more thing dragging people down; another slap in the face for people who can’t see straight for blinking.

All that matters is the relationship before us, the bigger picture is a luxury they simply cannot afford as they live from hand to mouth on the brink of disaster. The Lass stays in as her fella goes out scavenging bringing them back Cup-a-Soups and, if they’re lucky Rich Tea biscuits although the class divide between even these two is highlighted by her preference for Custard Creams or even Hobnobs.

Alana Connaughton and Michael Black. All shots credit lhphotoshots

She’ll get what she’s given and the two drink to excess every day in the absence of anything better to do and to deaden the ever-present fear that drives them under and further away from facing the consequences of what they have done.

“You push and you push and you push… you make me like this!”

The relationship is skilfully balanced with the couple sniping constantly and making up as they go, there’s affection, jealousy and there’s blame; are they getting to know each other or just doomed? It’s to Michael Black’s credit that the play leaves almost everything open: this is a cycle of dangerous possibilities and yet there’s a distant hope for the young people.

It’s in our consideration of just how the two might move on that the play is “political” as what it presents feels almost like a documentary than a drama. “Everything and everyone is pointless…” and “it’s just getting worse…” how are we to contribute to a solution?

The direction from Matt Strachan enables the two performers to unleash so much emotion within this constrained space – smaller even than usual – and both are amazing to watch, Alana crying real tears of frustration, fear and rage as the man she loves or could love, blows up in her face. Michael Black has a brooding presence and portrays a softness that gives The Lass and us hope.

Caught in a web... Credit lhphotoshots

There’s no doubt they are both sorry for what has happened as well as what they did and they want to change but how can they in the face of consequences which may damn them to this existence for good.

Mention should be made of Ruth Phillips’ movement direction – a lot to choreograph in that imagined room, as well as the design from Esteniah Williams, Lighting from Aiden Bromley and Sound from Nicola Chang.

Ithankyou Theatre rating: **** Another transformative experience at the Hope and a couple I will not soon forget. Their personal becomes our political in subtle and challenging ways, a smartly sculpted story.

Starved plays at the Hope until 3rd August, fortickets and details, please see their website.