Well met by moonlight… A Midsummer Night’s Dream, St John’s College Gardens, Cambridge Shakespeare Festival

The cast and director, with apologies for nicking this from Rob Goll's Twitter!

"I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was."

This play is all about transformation and driving into the unknown, finding a parking space and walking through St John’s ornate gates into their secluded gardens, the process began before we even sat down. There were families with picnics, strawberries and champagne, a proper varsity audience sat on the lawn, groundlings all, with everything all apart with the scenery. As dusk progressed the gardens changed shape, stage lighting forcing shadows ever deeper against the hedges and trees becoming forests… as Bottom became an ass.

This was my first time live with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, sure I’ve seen the 1909 silent version with Delores Costello, Drew Barrymore’s grandmother, and the Trevor Nunn RSC televised version with Helen and Diana… but nothing prepared me for this complex comedy to be so warm and welcoming. Directed by Matthew Parker this is truly delicious theatre with each and every player literally running themselves into the ground in service of the story; all encouraged to become expanded versions of themselves as combinations of Athenian legends, sprites, fairies and donkeys. Tonight, they made their own myths and were absolute legends.

Parker is always such a spatially aware director and he used the setting perfectly as the players mostly ran from and onto the stage, round the gardens out of sight and round the corner to re-emerge in different character. Most wore gym shoes or pumps as both Matthew and esteemed Artistic Director Dr David Crilly would say (Manchester and Liverpool working so well together), which served this pacey parkour perfectly, creating an impression of vast space around the performance area, turning the gardens to forest, helping the present tumble into the past, as the audience melted into myth drawn in by both the rhythms of words and voices.

The stage is set, the house was full and the strawberries and champagne in flow.

I can see why this play is so pleasingly regarded as its complexities are perfectly balanced and there are three main strands that we can see increasingly tangle only to surely straighten as the narrative concludes. For all its confusion and chaos, it is a very well-balanced narrative that leaves customers and characters satisfied but only after we all put in the hard yards.

Events start off in ancient Athens a place few Englishmen had visited in the 1590s but which lived in the imaginations of the play-going literati. Theseus, the Duke of Athens (Edmund Fargher) is preparing for his marriage, complete with four-day festival, to Hippolyta (Alex Andlau) when the nobleman Egeus (Rob Goll, who’s Bottom we’ll see a lot of) who is trying to arrange a marriage for his daughter, Hermia (Tessa Brockis). The contenders are Demetrius (George Barnden), father’s preference and young Lysander whom daughter loves.

Lysander is usually played by Aneurin Pritchard who injured himself a short while before tonight’s performance to be replaced by associate director David Rowan who, text in hand, performed a miracle of his own that somehow felt part of the Dream… there’s magic afoot with this event.

Under threat of death if she refuses to marry Demetrius, Hermia and Lysander plan their escape but not before telling Helena (Nadia Dawber) of their plan and she, being in love with Demetrius, tells him, hoping to shift his opinion. But no, Demetrius follows on after the couple and poor Helena follows him.

In the woods there is an argument between the fairy king, Oberon (Mr Fargher, again) and his queen Titania (Ms Andlau, also again) who are arguing over custardy of her Indian changeling causing her husband to plan a revenge. He calls on his "shrewd and knavish sprite", Puck (Amy Blanchard) to help him concoct a magical juice derived from a flower called "love-in-idleness", which applied to the eyelids of a sleeping person, makes them, upon waking, fall in love with the first living thing they see. Oh, what could possibly go wrong with that plan…

Meanwhile a third strand arrives in the form of an Athenian acting troop, amateurs who are in the forest to plan and rehearse a play for the wedding. They are played again by the aforementioned crew all of whom relish the opportunity to create additional characters and who are quickly submerged as the awkward Flute (David Rowan, text still in hand, a real trooper), the shy Starveling (Mr Barnden), the energetic Snout (Ms Brockis), the oddly gaited Snug (Nadia Dawber, straight from the Ministry of Silly Walks) and the oafish Bottom (Mr Goll) who is by nature exactly what his name suggests. They are marshalled by the endlessly impatient Quince (Meg MacMillan) who just wants to put on a good show for Theseus of the play what he wrote: The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe.

Now then, to cut a long story short, the potion gets applied to the right person and then the wrong person, the right person wakes up and falls in love with the wrong Donkey (yes) whilst the wrong person falls for another wrong person who is already in love with another wrong person anyway. As love-sick flies are we to the Gods or at least the Fairies…

It’s a riot and as my daughter pointed out whole families were laughing including the children which is always a mark of Shakespeare done well. It would be unfair to pick out individual cast members - every one of them excels! - but you have to admire Amy Blanchard’s Puck, whose movement is exceptional, jumping on Oberon’s back and in perpetual motion, laughing at the confusion caused. Needless to say, Mr Goll’s Bottom is indeed impressive, surely one of the funniest parts in Shakespeare (sorry, I'll stop...), especially when played the Yorkshire way, whilst Nadia Dawber get’s laughs for her physicality as well as her seemingly hopeless devotion to the indifferent Demetrius.

The multi-tasking is seeminlgy effortless, they all dance and sing, whilst the team work is so strong as we've come to expect from Mr Parker; all play hard but supportively and with joy! Thank you all for entertaining us!

Take a bow. Apologies for my iPhone.

IThankYou verdict: **** This play hits all the right notes and in the designated order, fast and furious fantasy and undoubtedly one of Bill’s best. But this is a truly immersive experience, from a time before such notions were invented, Parker’s Band cover all of the ground, emotionally, contextually and physically… there’s not a nuance unturned and you will respond cerebrally and viscerally. It’s mood-altering and not just a legal high but one that should be made compulsory!

The play continues up until 27^th August and I would urge you all to go sit with picnic, turn off your phones, relax and float downstream with this wonderful Dream.

You can book direct from the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival site and you won’t regret it.

The witch is back… Vinegar Tom, OVO at The Maltings Theatre

All photos by Pavel Gonevski

"Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard, But I think… OH BONDAGE, UP YOURS! 1-2-3-4!" Marianne Joan Elliott-Said aka Poly Styrene, April 1977

Caryl Churchill wrote this play in 1976 drawing allusions between the treatment of women even after early equalities legislation and the witch hunts of the seventeenth century, we watch it now and wonder how much has really changed. With new attacks on feminism from unexpected quarters and a government intent on reducing its own accountability whilst pushing the individual’s responsibility to “behave”, are we heading backwards? Is it time for women to “make more noise” again?

It certainly doesn’t feel like Churchill’s cries from the heart are in anyway anachronistic and the sheer, vicious illogicality of the witch hunt – the ducking stooled innocent if drowned, guilty if alive or the pin-pricked witch who either bleeds or hides her pain – reflects so much about the collapse of reason over the last ten years of global politics. Hyper-Normalisation and the Digitally Divided, a new Age of Conspiracy… modern medieval minds mystified by incessant waves of social media myth and legend as the men in black laugh.

Oh, nobody sings about it, but it happens all the time…

Matthew Parker’s direction is as theatrically fertile as they come and he has focused this 45^th anniversary production on the 1640s, the Civil War and the time of Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins who may have been responsible for the deaths of as many as 300 women between 1644-7. Even for the time this was extraordinary – in times of flux, all kinds of madness persist in the search for someone to blame, other than the powers of darkness.

Which is where we begin as Alice, played by the extraordinary Emilia Harrild, who combines fierce intelligence with the anger and vulnerability of youth, actually dances with the Devil, or at least a man who claims that he is (the multi-faceted Jon Bonner). It’s a bruising exchange showing Alice’s bravery as well as passion, yet she can’t connect to the man, who feels able to – literally – put her down. But he leaves his mark and she dreams of him…

Emilia Harrild

Alice lives with her mother Joan (Jill Priest, wonderfully spikey and expressive) who whilst she struggles to keep them both in food and drink relies sometimes on the kindness of neighbours, Margery (Cathy Conneff, spirited and yet fragile) and Jack (Alan Howell, as black-clouded sullen as most bass players) but their patience starts to wear thin as she asks for some yeast but Margery, struggling to get butter from her ailing cows, is now looking for a scape goat. Jack, as with Alice’s man in black, is a poor excuse for a man, constantly putting upon Margery, sexually harassing Alice and generally proving faithless. 

Jack isn’t capable of accepting responsibility for his own laziness and poor judgement, he even blames Alice for his erectile disfunction and pressed her to restore him… which, with a weary sigh, she does, only leading him to conclude that she therefore must be a witch. The play is not without humour – light and dark always perfectly balanced to often devastating effect in Mr Parker’s plays – and it comes naturally out of situations we can still recognise.

Betty (Lauren Somerville, who provides some subline counterpoint and harmonies), the young daughter of a wealthy landowner, refused to marry, is locked up by her parents whilst Alice’s friend Susan (Melissa Shirley-Rose, wining us over with her emotional clarity and honest confusion) is God-fearing and yet repeatedly pregnant… the women seek the help of herbalist and suspected witch Ellen the Cunning Woman (Lotte Davies, so funny in the closing duet and with a gut-wrenching cold-eyed look of terror for her character's hanging) who helps them with a potion for Alice to win back her dark lover and provides Susan, a draught to rid her of an unwanted baby… She is a “good witch” as the witch hunter Packer (Mr Bonner again, this time even purer, human, evil) later remarks, but the only good witch quickly becomes a dead witch in his practice.

Margery alarmed by her dying cattle and Jon mostly by Alice’s refusal to go with him, accuse Joan of being a witch and they too go to Ellen who provides then with a mirror in which they will find their truth… clearly, they only have themselves to see and blame but they persuade themselves that they see sorcerous Joan.

Cathy Conneff and Alan Howell see what they want to see

“Not for me to say one's a witch or not a witch. I give you the glass and you see in it what you see in it.”

Witch Master Packer arrives and is soon convincing the locals that the two women must be witches by whichever signal suits his agenda… fake news or not, fear leads folk to follow his judgement. Susan is so confused that she outs herself as a witch for her association with Alice even as she betrays her in her hysteria. Witch Finder Hopkins often travelled with a left-hand woman and here Emma Thrower is perfectly horrible as the deluded sidekick/enabler, the very bad, Goody. She also keeps great time on the drums.

Flavouring the action and adding real visceral impact are seven songs with lyrics originally written by Churchill added to new music written by composer Maria Haïk Escudero. We’d entered the performance space to PJ Harvey, from Let England Shake, and sure enough Matthew quotes the Abbotsbury Muse as an influence along with other women who are supernaturally talented, First Aid Kit (you must hear their version of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs!), Kate Bush, and Joni Mitchell… the last two, surely actually magical!?

The songs are performed by the entire cast and so we get part play/part gig and the most immersive and engaging experience you can expect with your socks on. Not only are the “band” exceptionally tight - and it must be so hard to play in character, that’s rubbing your tummy and patting your head really hard - but they have a charismatic lead singer in Alice/Emilia Harrild who knows how to front as well as sing. She also has the best haircut in Hertfordshire and plays the cello in Rome’s Colosseum, there’s nothing usual about her.

Priest and Davies selling it!!

The music is punchy and rocks authentically, bringing my old hero Poly Styrene to mind whilst also adding so much energy to the play’s central theme. Punk rock and punk play are both far from dead 45 years on! A splendid ensemble all of whom leave everything on the stage and deliver so many moments of magic proving that this woman’s work is never done when it comes to the dreaming. Wow.

The band/cast are all clearly having a ball and that’s another Parker hallmark, they play hard but also work hard to a woman and man throughout and there’s a creative camaraderie that undeniably reinforces their common purpose in proving the vibrancy, wicked humour and enduring quality of this play. 

IThankYou Theatre Rating: ***** Vinegar Tom delivers exactly what we have been missing these last 20 months – magical theatre but then, as Sir Elton almost said, the witch is back! 

Vinegar Tom plays until 6^th November so please get in quick, details on their website, park on Level 2 of the Maltings multi-storey and you’re there! The Maltings is also a lovely airy venue and feels totally Covid safe so I would heartily recommend the whole enterprise to those who are returning in increasing numbers to live performance.

 

 

Back to the future… Henry V, The Maltings Theatre, The Roman Theatre of Verulamium

“We few. We happy few. We band of brothers…”

After the drought, an outpouring of pure theatre in the eerie surroundings of St Albans’ 1900-year-old Roman Theatre and an event that already feels like the sweetest of dreams after five months without live performance. This was socially-distanced theatre and the Romans were typically ahead of the game in constructing this open-air wonder that allowed for a safely-spaced capacity audience on three levels as well as a single file bar and the odd fly past of murmurating starlings.

Director Matthew Parker had been tasked with devising a production to meet the “new normal” and managed to weave this into his typically innovative staging by presenting Henry as a school play or rather a play within a school play with entreaties to maintain social distancing carried over from rehearsals as the teacher’s call to pupils. If this sounds over-complicated it wasn’t as Mr Parker, as so often, succeeds in making the most complex of situations flow as naturally as the ancient verse from the mouths of his performers.

Matthew was also limited to ten players and so, in addition to being school children and teachers, they also had to play more than one character often transitioning in the switch of a line with all joints invisible. Some of us may have lost some match fitness over the last five months but these guys were straight into Olympic levels of heptathlon multi-eventing and it was an absolute joy to see.

The stage is set in The Roman Theatre of Verulamium

 I also had unfinished business with Henry V with my mother-in-law having fainted a few years back during a performance of what is one of her favourite Shakespeare’s at The Globe… she’s seen the play dozens of times but I missed the ending and so this was my first complete run through and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Agincourt result went the King’s way given what appeared to be overwhelming odds.

So, it was an afternoon of reconnections and the energy from the audience was palpable from the start and we were all lifted by the glorious team work on stage as Ms Nightingale (Cassandra Hodges) readied her pupils for a run through. This is a very kinetic production and the “pupils” and players were in constant motion moving forward on the stage for their lines as if limbering up for the high jump or a rap battle. None of these distracted from the play with the physical pacing designed to move the audience and the characters deeper into the drama as it unfolds.

Through the wind and the rain... Shot from Laura Harling.

Henry V is “meta” enough well before its time with the Chorus/Ms Nightingale explaining that there cannot be stage scenery enough to do justice to the full glory of the King’s story and our mind’s eyes duly tipped off we begin to imagine the backdrops superimposed over the Hertfordshire countryside beyond. There’s also a humour that’s little changed over the centuries with the French Dauphin (Luke Adamson) responding to Henry’s signalled intent to claim his rightful throne with the gift of tennis balls, a reference to his youthful immaturity.

But this is not the same Henry as in Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays and here, as played by Mara Allen in her first leading role – a double challenge, very well met – the young King is in full command with an emergent ability to inspire and lead.

"Now all the youth of England are on fire... They sell the pasture now to buy the horse, / Following the mirror of all Christian kings ...."

Henry survives an assassination attempt from the Earl of Cambridge (Rachel Fenwick showing her Shakespearean pedigree throughout) and sets off for France. The play, as with so many, was the playwright’s attempt to not only justify the legitimacy of the Tudor throne but also to laud the character of Queen Elizabeth’s forefather. Henry’s leadership skills are demonstrated in the first battle for the town of Harfleur as the king implores his struggling troops to return “once more unto the breach…”

Dauphin Luke Adamson and King Jack Reitman. Photo Laura Harling.

By contrast, the French are painted as arrogant, although King Charles VI (Jack Reitman, Offie award-winning for The Hope’s Thrill Me – also a Parker production) is one of the few not to underestimate the invaders. I loved the richness of the minor characters such as Welsh moaner Fluellen (Mr Adamson again), the unscrupulous Bardolph (Paula Gilmour) and the energetic Bates as played by Felipe Pacheco who gave such a physically fluid performance, lots of snap in his long staff as well as kick in his heels.

The play’s a lovely mix of grand scale and common folk cameo all of which reinforces Henry’s humanity and leadership qualities. Famously, on the eve of the impossible victory at Agincourt, he walks in disguise among his soldiers to gauge their mood and give himself fuel for the fiery speech that will lead them to prevail thanks to archers and organisational inspiration. There’s death and diplomacy interlaced with humour and I loved the Franglais of Princess Katherine (Ms Fenwick again) as she struggles with English pronunciation with the aid of her maid Alice, with Paula Gilmour skilfully channelling the Essex accent of school player Josie for the word “nails”, an’ “’ands”.

 All of the cast get their chance to shine with rounded multi-roles from Melissa Shirley-Rose, Edward Elgood and James Keningale, especially as the blustering Pistol! All get their chance to dance to at the rousing finish with modern beats which would have confounded the Bard.

Mara Allen in command. Photo Laura Harling.

The acid test for any Shakespearean production is being able to deal naturally with the dialogue whilst opening up the meaning to modern audiences and I have to give Mr Parker’s “class” 10/10 for that: we were entertained and enlightened and that’s something I missed the most about theatre this year.

IThankYouTheatre Rating: ***** It’s a treat to see Shakespearean sophistication at this level in Hertfordshire or, indeed, anywhere. Please support this season: theatre is back and not a moment too soon!

Henry V continues along with the rest of the Open-Air season until 31^st August and tickets are available from the Maltings website.

All photographs from Laura Harling except for my day-time shot of the rain-free theatre.

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!

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.

All killer, no filler... Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story, Hope Theatre

The upstairs room of The Hope and Anchor is always the extra character in every play I’ve seen, it’s like a sentient being in an Alan Moore fantasy, one that is haunted by the intentions of stage and lightning designers and the stories they tell. Tonight, the room was working overtime as artistic director Matthew Parker’s flair for movement and space brought out new and genuinely shocking dimensions as it always does.

Leopold and Loeb, the two “thrill-killers” suddenly feel the Police closing in and the nervy Leopold swings a torch around revealing a wall plastered with photographs and cuttings from the original murder in 1924. These are all linked together by red cord which criss-crosses the walls and the space above our heads; we’re in an incident room and a young boy has just been horribly murdered by two hyper-intelligent sociopaths.

The two men were saw themselves as Nietzschean supermen, whose superior intellects should allow them to rise above the laws of common men, they began to indulge in criminal exercises just for the hell of it and again, there’s a particularly visceral sequence in which they torch a warehouse and Loeb’s face is lit bright red as he revels in the transgressive destruction and sings, Nothing Like a Fire. There is also a powerful sexual connection between the men and their deeds with Loeb, always the master, making sex conditional on their escapades and passions run alarmingly high after each crime.

Jack Reitman. All photos credit lhphotoshots

Parker doesn’t hold back and before you know it the audience is complicit in the relationship and the tragic attractions of this deadly pursuit, I’ve seen a lot of excellent shows at this venue and Thrill Me is surely one of the most intimately engaging: we’re dared to look into the hearts of men who committed the most appalling of acts, killers who Leopold later said were only human. This is a musical but of the most challenging and ultimately rewarding kind.

For all this to work, you need exceptional leading men and in Bart Lambert and Jack Reitman, Parker has found actors who not only look the part but have West-End power to their vocals as well as nuanced emotional control. As the dominant Richard Loeb, Reitman’s film-star looks are backed up by subtle reading of his character; yes, Loeb is the most overtly sociopathic and daring of the couple but he is also allowed chinks of vulnerability that show he needs his lover as much, perhaps, as he is needed.

Bart Lambert imbues Nathan Leopold with a febrile uncertainty, driven by an obsessive love for Richard and the constant cruelty pushed his way – Loeb calls him “Babe” but only sparingly as he knows he likes it… he undermines at every turn but perhaps he needs the lift?

Bart Lambert. Photo lhphotoshots

Together they drive each other on as the two law students think of ever more thrilling ways to break the rules they have studied - both still aspiring to be lawyers "after".

Stephen Dolginoff’s musical was originally staged in 2003 and tells the story in flashback from Leopold’s parole hearing in 1958 with the narrative switching back and forth to key moments in the men’s relationship. The songs are strong and allow both voices to shine as they sing about subjects that by all rights should be too complex, Richard’s singing about luring their murder victim to his car in Roadster is quite the most disturbing song I’ve heard all year and yet it’s pitched just right; you feel terrible and yet there’s a glimpse of the motivation behind this horrific act.

Tim Shaw sits behind the keyboards, accompanying in fine style, at first noticeable and then fading into the background - in the best possible way - as the story takes hold.

Chris McDonnell lighting design is exceptional as is Rachel Ryan's design and you get a sense of the team ethic of Mr Parker’s Hope which drives the theatre onwards with every new show. Thrill Me is a remarkable show and I if you’re looking for an adventure into the genuinely unexpected, take a walk on the wild side and book with confidence… you’ll still be feeling the show in the days that follow.

IthankyouTheatre rating: ***** For those who don’t believe that musical theatre can tackle complicated real-life stories this is unmissable; it’s an adventure into the lives and love of two killers that fearlessly asks “why?”

Thrill Me, plays at the Hope Theatre until 20th April, full details on the website.  

Bad education… The Lesson, The Hope Theatre

Every language is facts, it's only a matter of speaking it…

I prepared for The Lesson by learning nothing about Eugene Ionesco, I knew this play was going to be different and how important it is to the Hope’s Artistic Director Matthew Parker, but I didn’t want to cheat, I wanted to experience it all freshly cut. I wasn’t disappointed – even in my ignorance, my preconception was that this would be another piece of dynamic, jarring, theatre – and it surpassed my lazy assumptions by slicing through the fourth wall and imbedding itself in my mind even after a long working afternoon spent discussing data…

The play’s classroom turns out to be more like a torture chamber than anything else and it wrongfooted the audience who didn’t know whether to laugh or gasp; the main thing they had in common was an open mouth. Some were obviously familiar with the play and the style, but others were reacting with fresh-faced glee and/or horror.

I’ve never seen a funnier play about indoctrination, miss-communication and fascism but that’s damning The Lesson with faint praise. It’s a furiously-complex piece that operates on many levels all at the same time - all of them in your face.

Now I’ve read up on Ionesco and I understand that he wrote this in Post-War France for a first production 1951 and it has been in continuous performance ever since… it really is a play for today that shows just how quickly discourse turns sour and fatal decisions made based on ideas that suit rather than anything else.

Sheetal Kapoor

It begins with a Maid (Joan Potter) cleaning up the classroom of a Professor (Roger Alborough). The doorbell rings and a new Pupil arrives for her lesson (Sheetal Kapoor) with the Professor. The atmosphere is strange and yet here we have a perfectly ordinary scenario; a classroom, an exchange of knowledge what could be safer? What could be more normal?

In this World mademoiselle, one can never be sure of anything…

The Professor comes into the room and starts to assess his eager new pupil who seems as bright as a button! It’s absurdist with her answers to simple questions pleasing him no end as we sit thinking of course 1 + 1 equals 2… but we’re being set up and so skilfully as well. What we think we see is only a pretext for a deeper discourse on the nature of mutual understanding.

So, when the Pupil suddenly wrong-foots expectations by not being able to subtract 3 from 4 we have to readjust expectations and try to work out new rules for this game.

We struggle to see the logic – how can she not subtract? The Pupil seems only capable of learning through wrote; she has memorised the answers to billions of calculations without being able to work them out for herself… that’s brilliant but it’s also disturbing: what kind of society doesn’t allow for the imagination to deviate through creative processing?

The Pupil starts to get tooth ache – a manifestation of the shadow discourse twisting violently in the room. The Maid returns warning the Professor to avoid other subjects, appalled when he suggests philology: “the worst of all!”.

Toothache no barrier to learning...

Knowledge is a danger in itself but it’s the spaces between understanding that is most dangerous of all and the secret meanings you can only second guess unless you “fit”.

Pronunciation is itself, worth an entire dialect!

The tension between Pupil and Professor mounts along with the violence of his language and we look on in dread – what started off as highly formalised politeness has descended into something far more serious and theatrically wonderful!

This is another stunner from The Hope and I swear its playroom morphs like a Tardis in certain productions: I always remember the space differently based on the play. That’s down to ace direction from Artistic Director Matthew Parker along with sound design, lighting and set layout – take a bow Simon Arrowsmith, Chris McDonnell and Rachael Ryan who has the walls covered in chalked calculations; as if we’re the blackboard!

The performers grew larger than life in front of us as audience reality was distorted by the sheer intensity of Roger Alborough’s Professor as his madness proved malleable and self-normalising: we’ve seen so much of that recently haven’t we?

Sheetal Kapoor was the perfect pupil, polite and vulnerable in her conviction that learning would be the all she needed to do. Joan Potter’s cleaner was also relatable as she enabled, acquiesced and kept calm and carried on…

Joan Potter

IThankYou Rating: ***** 2+3 equals 5 as does 7-2 and 19+33. This small space above busy Highbury is transformed into a darkly magically-real else-world… The Man in the Upper Street Hope and Anchor.

The Lesson plays until 13^th October and tickets can be obtained from the Hope Box Office on and online.

Thou nature art my goddess… Foul Pages, The Hope Theatre

It’s Oscars week and Call Me by Your Name was deservedly nominated among the best pictures and best performances. It’s a film about falling in love and it just so happens that it’s men doing the falling without much fuss or flim-flam, certainly in the eyes of the father of one of the young men, who gives his son the best kind of support when his heart is broken. Love normalised.

I was reminded of the simple honestly of this film watching Foul Pages, a very personal play from Robin Hooper, spurred on by memories of school plays, crushes and the truths he could only speak when dressed as a “girl” in a Shakespeare play. As a schoolboy actor he said he never tried to hide what he was or could be… on stage he was liberated.

Foul pages are written in our lives as scripts for dishonesty and expedience. Just as William Shakespeare is made to re-write certain passages by his sponsor the Countess of Pemroke and forced into casting the King’s favourite as Rosalind and not the better actor he wrote the part for, so too do we all compromise parts of our integrity away and on a regular basis. To fit in at work or with social groups we modify our behaviour but when this extends to the vast area of our self, devoted to sexuality and love then it is sad and monstrous.

James King, Thomas Bird and Lewis Chandler

Even in Shakespeare’s happy-go-lucky band of travelling players the men joke about same-sex liaisons as being like in the navy – needs must - whilst others do what they do for favour and patronage. But in the midst of this play acting there is genuine affection and for one couple, a tragedy waiting to happen.

But, before all that, there’s a talking dog called Chop and he is the very best talking dog I have ever seen on stage. Played by James King with best-of-reed swagger and a ruff-ruff! round his neck, Chop is our Greek chorus and one of the most sympathetic characters, commenting straight to audience on the human doings and eventually proving to be a hero. Man’s best friend. As with Lear’s fool, Chop keeps on telling us truths; his’ master’s voice.

Nominally the story is about Mary, Countess of Pembroke (Clare Boomer) and her attempts to stage a play to appeal to King James’ better conscience so that he will free Sir Walter Raleigh. Mary’s married but Raleigh’s her man even before her husband passed on. She will do anything for him and who can blame her when even the King’s bodyguard, Mears (Jack Harding) has taken a bite out of the man who bought us tobacco and potatoes.

Now you see, Bard, this is how you do it...

Mary’s maid, Peg (Olivia Onyehara) is steadfastly in the midst of this intrigue and carries on her work even as the players strut and the mistress plots. She is to be disappointed in her approach to the playwright’s brother Ed (Greg Baxter) who it seems has his heart set on another… Will himself (Ian Hallard) tries hard to protect the chastity of his work but there’s so many wanting to screw it up for the sake of politics, themselves and other issues.

His poetry is also a catalyst for human response and not just as a potion aimed at encouraging the King’s good will. For the talented Alex (Lewis Chandler) Rosalind is the role he was born to play and for Rob (Thomas Bird) it’s the thing with which he’ll catch the eye of the king as he dreams of land in Lincolnshire and the comfortable life of a consort.

King James (Tom Vanson) proves both generous and considerate but the presence of all-powerful royalty does tend to bring out the anxieties in his subjects and jealousy inspires violence as our players become increasingly desperate in their attempts to follow their hearts’ desire.

Peg sees to her mistress as Chop thinks on...

Foul Pages is another intensely theatrical triumph for the Hope and as you would expect, Matthew Parker directs his crowded stage with panache and pace. The energy is high and maintained by snatches of thumping electronica (Chop-House Music?) the action never lets up as the characters move across and around each other from start to finish.

It’s bitter sweet but a glorious plea for honesty and for your truth. It finished with a pumped-up players’ dance that, for a second, I thought we should all join in.

Ithankyou Rating: **** or, for Chop, Woof Woof Woof Woof!!!!

Foul Pages runs until 17^th March and tickets are availablefrom their box office and online.

Photographs by LHPhotoshots

Jazz-age Jitters… Thark, Drayton Arms Theatre

The Twenties, the decade when we started our liberation through a vibrant mix of our own music, dance and style: a movement to joy that never really stopped, give or take a war or two. As a deep-diver in the world of silent film I can see the influence of the original The Cat and the Canary on this play not to mention the romantic comedies of Ivor Novello, the loaded direction of an Ernst Lubitsch and the flapper energies of Colleen Moore. There was so much invention at this time and broadening of cultural opportunities...

I don’t know much about Ben Travers but he, along with PG Wodehouse, would have set templates that are still being mined and this play is very much what you’d expect a “farce” to be: witty, clipped wordplay, delivered at speed with no let up from start to finish. In the hands of director Matthew Parker, Travers’ play becomes a Hi-NRG romp, with machine-gun diction and a cast that carries on with expression even when they have no lines… exactly like a silent movie! It’s like a competition, a free-form exhibition – no doubt highly rehearsed – of movement, expression, pantomime and even vocalise: when the butler’s name is called, it’s almost sung, “Hoooo-ook!!” whilst the bizarre maid at the supposedly haunted house, Mrs Death (called Jones, for obvious reasons…) lets out a sequence of strange, foreboding moans.

On top of this you had an audience whooping and laughing almost constantly throughout the play: they were having a ball and that provides more eloquent comment than my words could convey.

Ellie Gill, Isabella Hayward, Alexander Hopwood, Charlotte Vassell and Sophia Lorenti ((lhphotoshots)

There was also dancing and Beyoncé too! At the end of the first act the cast suddenly started dancing as a jazzed version of Crazy in Love boomed out of the speakers. This was unexpected but before we had time to react it got funnier as one by one the troop began stepping out. The icing on the cake was Lionel Frush (Alexander Hopwood) gurning his way in the middle of the women but the 10 Strictly points go to Isabella Hayward whose Cherry Buck was the jazziest baby and has early had extensive experience of the Charleston and possibly the Black Bottom too.

Farces can seem thrown together, but they require discipline and perfect control of space and time: those doors won’t open by themselves and the plot lines won’t tangle without due diligence and all the players and pieces fell exactly where they had to tonight.

As Matthew has said in interview, the men tend to be the idiots whilst the women are far smarter, but the beauty of the writing is that everyone finds their way on the end as gentile society is lampooned for the amusement of all.

A lady calls: Robin Blell and Isabella Hayward ((lhphotoshots)

The young cast clearly relished the chance to play “period” comedy but the writing is smart and the feel is very contemporary: it was a knowing decade. Having seen so many silent comedies even the play on words for “queer, very queer…” echoes a title card in Hitchcock’s’ The Lodger in which the famously gay Ivor Novello’s character is knowingly referred to as a queer fellow and that’s nothing compared to William Haines cheeky male-bottom pinching in Spring Fever: the twenties saw the beginning of liberation for all.

Indeed, the play’s very foundation point is marital infidelity as Sir Hector Benbow (Mathijs Swarte) starts the ball rolling by inviting Cherry Buck, a young window dresser he had met in London, for dinner at his house whilst his wife is away. Sadly for him, not only does Lady Benbow (Charlotte Vassell) announce her unexpected return at precisely the same time as his naughty tryst but so does Mrs Frush (Ellie Gill) and her son.

The Frusts had bought a country house, Thark, from Sir Hector who was acting on behalf of his ward, Kitty Stratton (Natalia Lewis) who also happens to be romantically entwined with his nephew Ronald (Robin Blell) … Needless to say, every relationship is quickly up for grabs with lie piling upon lie as Sir Hector tries to get the hapless Ronald to meet Cherry only for Kitty to get the wrong end of the stick and that stick to be swung in both men’s general direction.

I ain't afraid of no ghosts... (lhphotoshots)

It’s almost by way of distraction that the men decide they need to prove Thark is a sound investment by sleeping in the most haunted part of this most haunted house. Cue things that go bump in the night and a grandstand finish.

Thark is a far cry from Matthew Parker’s last play, Brimstone and Treacle and it shows his comedy chops especially in his joyous cast. Everyone is lovable with Blell deserving special mention for his facial displays of contorted horror and his elaborate attempts to communicate new lies through mime. Daniel Casper plays the long-suffering servant Hook, who always takes the blame even when he has to put off seeing his new baby daughter. Sophia Lorenti has a double role as the Benbow’s maid as well as the aforementioned Death/Jones when she really takes flight.

Sophia Lorenti gets a telling off from Mathijs Swarte's Sir Hector (lhphotoshots)

Kieran Slade pops up as the journalist Whittle and it’s interesting to see that even in 1927, little time was had for this profession with Sir Hector’s preference is for shooting first before answering any questions.

Thark plays at The Drayton Arms Theatre in South Kensington until 6^th January and tickets are available from the box office site.

Don’t hesitate old bean, it’s a hoot!!

Ithankyou Theatre Rating: ****