Tag: Omar Elerian

Misty by Arinzé Kene, Bush Theatre, 17 March 2018

Janie and I both found this a very entertaining and unusual piece. A one man show written and performed by Arinzé Kene.

Friends who have seen my own little Mithras performance from earlier in the week – click here or below…

The London Mithraeum With The Gresham Society, 15 March 2018

…might expect Misty to be a sort-of jazz standards musical. You’d be so wrong.

So is Misty a play, a rap musical, an installation performance or what? It is sort-of all of those things.

Click here for a link to the Bush resource on this piece/production.

Below is a trailer showing one of the rap numbers from the start of the piece:

Below is a short “meet the writer” interview:

Kene explains that it is a piece about trying to write such a piece…

…which I suppose makes it a post-modern performance piece.

There’s some weird imagery too, with some orange balloon motifs acting as a recurring theme.

I don’t think this piece is aimed at the traditional theatre audience, but we were captivated by it.

We liked the poetry of Arinzé Kene’s language, we liked the music – both of the musicians, Adrian McLeod and Shiloh Coke (you can see them in the City Creature vid above) were excellent – I was especially impressed by Shiloh Coke, a young multi-instrumentalist – she should go far.

Arinzé Kene is a very talented rapper, along with being a talented writer and actor/performer.

At the time of writing Misty has only just opened, so you should be able to get to see it over the next few weeks – highly recommended as an unusual but entertaining theatrical, musical, image-filled evening.

Nassim by Nassim Soleimanpour, Bush Studio, 29 July 2017

We loved this innovative, short piece.

It is described well, along with all the information you could possibly want, on the Bush site – here.

It is performed (alongside the author) by a different performer each night, who has not seen the script.  We got Phelim McDermott, who is one of the artistic directors of Improbable. He was very good.

The piece is, on the surface, very simple, childish even. Yet the more you think about it, the more you realise that Nassim is making profound points about freedom of speech, not least the pains people like him go through when they leave their home country (in his case Iran) in order to communicate what they have to say in a foreign place and a foreign language.

We sat right at the front but managed to avoid the worst elements of the audience participation. Having said that, I got the dirtiest of dirty looks from Phelim when I tried to help him follow his instructions, by pointing to an “X marks the spot” which was located next to my seat.

We weren’t just moved and thoughtful; we laughed a lot during the 70 minutes or so. Nassim is clearly a very innovative and skilled dramatist; we’ll certainly look out for his work again.

This Bush run is an Edinburgh preview – I think this piece will go down very well in Edinburgh. It is then returning to The Bush for a while after Edinburgh – I recommend that you grab a ticket for that while/if you still can, if you like this sort of thing.

Janie and I had a crazy craving for Iranian food after Nassim’s homesick piece, so decided to try Rice Chiswick, which we found very satisfactory. Not quite Mohsen’s standard, but close and very convenient for the Bush.

A splendid evening.

Islands by Caroline Horton, Bush Theatre, 24 January 2015

We thought this play and its production were just awful.

I seem to recall that it ran straight through without an interval; had there been an interval we would not have returned for the second half of this one. Perhaps there was and we didn’t. The whole experience was so bad we’ve mostly blotted it from our minds.

The subject matter – tax havens and the greed of the super rich – is fair game for theatre. But this was like a really bad copy of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi style with almost no substance – opportunities missed.

If you want to know more about the production, the Bush has a decent stub on it – click here.

I could go on, but I won’t.

 

Perseverance Drive by Robin Soans, Bush Theatre, 5 July 2014

This is the sort of play/production that reminds us why we like the Bush so much.

The play is set in Barbados and London; the play is a mature drama, full of insight into Bajan life and culture. Robin Soans has previous of course – not least Life After Scandal…

Life After Scandal by Robin Soans, Hampstead Theatre, 21 September 2007

…but this play is quite different as when we had seen his previous work it had been verbatim theatre before this play.

Here is a link to the Bush’s resource on this play/production.

Excellent cast, excellent production. Janie and I were discussing the issues and the relative merits (and demerits) of the characters deep into the weekend.

Below is a trailer:

More interesting, here is a short interview with Robin Soans and director Madani Younis:

Finally, here is a link to a search term that finds the (mostly excellent) reviews.