Category: Theatre

Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire, Hampstead Theatre, 30 January 2016

We go to the Hampstead Theatre to see a preview of Rabbit Hole at the Hampstead – production details from the wonderful Hampstead website are here.

This was another sad evening at the theatre, making it four out of four for us in January 2016.  We are in the home of a couple a few months on from the tragic death of their infant son.  The ever-excellent Claire Skinner plays the grieving mother.  We also meet her husband, sister, mother and the young driver who ran over the child.  All roles were played very well indeed.  The multi-dimensional set (aren’t they all the rage these days?) was superb.

The piece won a Pulitzer when first produced and was made into a film in 2010 with Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckert and Diane Wiest.  Neither of us have seen the film.

Presumably it has never been performed as a play in the UK.  Edward Hall likes to seek out such lost gems and he might be on to a winner with this one (it has almost sold out its run in advance), although the relentlessly sad thread that runs throughout the play might mitigate against a West End transfer.

Ed Hall himself was in the audience our night.  As indeed were John and Linda – a couple we regularly see at the theatre although we unusually hadn’t seen them for a while before tonight.  It was nice to chat with them again during the interval.

Originally we were supposed to get Alison Steadman as the mother but she pulled out a couple of months ago and we had been told to expect Penny Downie instead. We think of her as Queen Zenobia, but we are reliably informed that she is officially now “Penny Downie of Downton Abbey”.  In any case she played her irritating yet ultimately sympathetic role very well.  I could imagine Alison Steadman doing it too.

Real reviews to follow – presumably the Hampstead link – here it is again will be updated with the more favourable of those.

How I Said ‘F*** You’ To The Company When They Tried to Make Me Redundant by Rohan Candappa, Z/Yen Offices, 28 January 2016

Moncada Barracks or the old Z/Yen offices? One or the other.

Back in December, Rohan Candappa wrote to me asking if he could by any chance use the big Z/Yen meeting room on 28 January to try out his latest piece of performance writing early evening on the motley bunch of Alleyn’s alumni (I include myself in that epithet) who gather occasionally in the City for beer, curry and old times’ sake.

Strangely, Z/Yen’s big meeting room is not much used at 19:00 in the evening, so it would have seemed churlish to say no, especially when Rohan agreed to sponsor some beer and nibbles. Linda Cook, our Z/Yen practice manager, was hurriedly elected an honorary Alleyn’s alum for the evening, so the organisation of the event was practically resolved, even with John Eltham out of the country for much of January.

It felt incongruous (in a pleasant way) to have the Alleyn’s gang at the Z/Yen office for the evening. For one thing, I didn’t realise how well behaved we could be when gathered together in the right environment. There weren’t even any teachers to keep us in check.

But to Rohan’s extraordinary piece. The title basically divulges the plot. Rohan expresses in poignant terms the emotions he experienced when told that he was being made redundant. There is nothing funny about the way being made redundant makes someone feel, but the circumstances of this attempted redundancy are quite ludicrous. In the hands of Rohan Candappa, who is highly skilled at bitter-sweet humour as well as the more standard comedy variety, this sad story generated a remarkable amount of laughter. It is a very funny piece.

The humour builds once Rohan reaches the point in the story where, having had time to reflect on his seemingly hopeless situation, he decides to try and win against the odds. He initiates this twist brilliantly by telling the story of the Cuban rebels attacking the Moncada Barracks in 1953 – click here if you want to see the Wikipedia version of the story – although Rohan’s version is more pertinent to his story and far more fun.

Click here if you want to see the pictures Janie and I took of the Moncada Barracks in 2007.  Indeed feel free to hang around in Flickr looking at our Cuba pictures generally.  It’s one heck of a photogenic place.  As long as you promise to come back here afterwards and finish reading this blog piece.

Once the “fight back” part of Rohan’s story starts to unfold, the piece becomes even funnier and has terrific momentum to it. I almost felt sorry for [Insert name here] (the boss behind the attempted redundancy) and his human resources hench-woman…

…I said ALMOST felt sorry for them. Cut me some slack guys. Or say how you felt about it with your own words in the comments section. Don’t just yell at the screen.

There are precious few pieces of theatre about the workplace and even fewer good ones. With all due respect to Vaclav Havel, who wrote several absurdist pieces about work places, I have seen more than one but never got much out of those Havel plays. Indeed, the only really good play about the workplace that comes to my mind is David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross.  In an intriguing echo of Rohan’s title, btw, the film version of Glengarry Glen Ross (which is a very good movie) has the phrase “F*** You” articulated in an infeasible number of different ways for a two-syllable phrase. But I digress. My point is that the workplace is a big part of our lives but is wicked hard to turn into good drama. Rohan has succeeded in producing some very good drama indeed in this piece, which is a commendable achievement.

In short, the piece is a triumph and I really hope that Rohan progresses with it and gets it a wider audience. It is really thought-provoking as well as entertaining.

We sat in the meeting room chatting for ages after the performance; some of the group are people who have been made redundant, others of us people who have been in a position where we have dismissed staff ourselves. Everyone had experiences, thoughts and points to make. Eventually we realised that we were late for our meal and that our restaurant booking might go south unless we quickly headed south to the Rajasthan. So we migrated and continued our conversations there. A very special evening.

Yen by Anna Jordan, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 23 January 2016

This extraordinary play and production completed our January hat-trick of marvellous but grim plays; the first being You For Me For You by Mia Chung, the second being The Rolling Stone by Chris Urch.

Before we set off, I looked up the details on the Royal Court website and called them out to Janie.  “It won the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2013,” I said…

…”hold on a minute, I thought The Rolling Stone was promoted as having that same prize, the same year.  What’s going on?”

Turns out, this wonderful (relatively recent) Bruntwood Prize is run biennially and is awarded to four winners each time.  So they had both won  in 2013.

Yen is in some ways even more troubling than The Rolling Stone.  It feels more “on our own doorstep” (not that proximity should make the issues and human suffering any more alarming) and had extraordinary intensity and sway of emotions.

The young cast’s acting was simply superb, Ned Bennett’s directing once again takes the breath away.  In short, this play/production deserves all the plaudits and rave reviews it has already received and more besides.  You’ll find those here in the helpful Royal Court area.

Janie found this play/production so troubling she said she didn’t sleep so well that night.  Very unusual; she is pretty robust and we’ve seen a lot of troubling plays in our time.  So this is not for “people of a nervous disposition”.  But if you like your drama strong, raw and top notch, try somehow to get hold of a ticket for this one if you can.

 

The Rolling Stone by Chris Urch, Orange Tree Theatre, 16 January 2016

We seem fated to sit next to the luvvies this year. Last week Daisy ended up with Benedict Wong sitting next to her at The Royal Court. Then earlier this week, she took a call from the Orange Tree , to see if we minded shifting up one seat on our row to make space for an actors’ seat. I’m not sure what would have happened if we had refused this request. Anyway, I ended up with half the cast sitting next to me at one time or another (not all at the same time).

Don’t let the jovial start to this posting deceive you. This was another bleak piece about troubled people in a troubled place. This time the place is Uganda and the story is basically that of a young man who gets himself and his religious family caught up in the persecution of gay people. At no point in the play would you sensibly anticipate a happy ending.

The play has won awards and is another of Paul Miller’s canny transfers from Royal Exchange Manchester, where it was deservedly very well received – see synopsis, reviews from Manchester (presumably, eventually, also from Richmond – we attended the last Oraneg Tree Preview), cast and creative credits here.

This is only Chris Urch’s second play, so his is certainly a name to look out for in future.

The title, The Rolling Stone, refers to a newspaper in Uganda that acts as a focal point for persecution by naming and shaming homosexuals.  You’d need a heart of stone not to be moved by this production and the real life plight of gay people in Uganda (and indeed many parts of the world), which this play puts under the spotlight.

You For Me For You by Mia Chung, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 9 January 2016

We attended the last night of this quite remarkable piece at the Royal Court.  It was also the last night downstairs for Linda by Penelope Skinner , so the place was swarming with luvvies, presumably supporting their friends and/or sticking around for an end of run party.

We spotted Sam West (who I knew reasonably well at school) and Laura Wade in the bar.  We also saw Tamsin Greig and Richard Leaf, plus Benedict Wong and his date.  These latter four ended up in our upstairs show sitting close by.

Janie asked, “is that Ai Wei Wei?” just after Benedict Wong  squeezed past us, to which I said “yes,” thinking she meant “is that the bloke who played Ai Wei Wei?” rather than mistaking him for the Chinese artist himself. “Good job I didn’t congratulate him on his exhibition at the Royal Academy,” said Janie later when the confusion came to light, “he’d have taken me for a right divvy”.

As always now with the Royal Court (and many other theatres), the archive contains pretty much everything you want to know about the production including the reviews, which were universally and deservedly very good indeed.

This is not an evening of light entertainment, but it is a wonderful piece of original theatre, with superb acting, stage design, movement and all.  It deserves a transfer and sighting by a much larger and wider audience, but the bleak North Korean subject matter will, sadly, probably prevent that from happening.

Forget Me Not by Tom Holloway, Bush Theatre, 19 December 2015

A powerful evening at the theatre, this play.  It is about the forced migration of thousands of British children to Australia in the quarter-of-a-century or so after the second world war.

Janie came away from the play feeling very angry about the Australian Government, although in truth the Church and the UK Government have just as much to answer and apologise for; which, to some extent, all these parties have done in recent years.

The play is focused on one such child’s story and the impact this ill-thought policy had on his life and the lives of those around him – explained well in the Bush Theatre rubric – click here.

It is superbly acted by all four actors and well produced at the Bush, one of our favourite places at the moment, putting on interesting work with a consistent high quality; very few misses there.

Michael Billington was full of praise in his Guardian review – click here.  Henry Hitchings in the Standard was perhaps even more keen on it – click here.

It was originally produced at the Belvoir Theatre in Sydney in 2013, where it also seems to have gone down very well – for information and reviews click here.

It is quite a short evening at the theatre, which was just as well for us, as Janie and I wanted to go on to Lisa Opie’s party afterwards and get there before most people had left, which we achieved.  The party did a jolly good job of cheering us up again after this sobering but gripping evening at the theatre.

Thomas Gresham Nativity Song, Gresham Society Soiree, 9 December 2015

To Gresham College at Barnard’s Inn Hall, for the biennial Gresham Society soiree.  Those of a musical or light entertainment persuasion put on a short variety show, as the scene-setter for a jolly social. The usual assortment of super people gathered; a mixture of professors, former professors/lecturers and Gresham College enthusiasts.

I wrote a version of “I’m Henery The Eighth I Am”, to describe the events that might have led to Thomas Gresham’s birth and eventual financial heroics. I decided to give my recently-acquired baritone ukulele skills an outing this time, not least because I have recently imported a Roosebeck Baritone Baroq-ulele which certainly looked the part for this “piece”.

This was quite a daunting performance for me – I only took up the baritone ukulele 18 months ago, having eschewed all instruments since the disaster that was my attempt at the violin as a small boy. So this was to be my first performance in front of an audience.

Further, the song I chose did not have any simple chord versions to be found on the web; the chorus of course (a big hit for Herman’s Hermits and Joe Brown before them) but not the verse.

So I needed to work out the chords for myself – see attachment with my hand-written notes.  I wrote “capo 1” all over it, as I chorded it in G but it was originally written (and indeed Herman’s Hermits sang it) in A minor. In the end, though, I sang and played it without the capo, i.e. in G major, as the baroq-ulele was a little quiet for the Barnard’s Inn Hall and my voice copes a little better the deeper I go.

The audience participation elements worked well and I am told the performance was well received. In any case, as the compere Professor Tim Connell put it at the start of one of the other acts that evening, “it’s not all about music tonight”. That was certainly the case for my little rendition.

The text that follows has the original verse and chorus, by Fred Murray and R P Weston, followed by two verses of my own. Shown in the text below the music notes and then further below as viewable JPEGs and also a downloadable PDF.But, as Michael Mainelli said, there’s probably only one music hall in the world that will really appreciate my Thomas Gresham verses for the song; Barnard’s Inn Hall.

♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬

THE THOMAS GRESHAM NATIVITY SONG

(Song to the Tune of “I’m Henery The Eighth, I Am”)

FIRST VERSE

You don’t know who you’re looking at, now have a look at me,

I’m a bit of a nob I am, belong to Royaltee;

I’ll tell you how it came about, I married widow Burch,

And I was King of England, when I toddled out of church.

Outside the people started shouting, “Hip hooray”;

Said I, “Get down upon your knees its Coronation Day.”

CHORUS 

I’m Henery the eighth I am, Henery the eighth I am, I am

I got married to the widow next door

She’s been married seven times before

Everyone was a Henery (AUDIENCE: Henery)

She wouldn’t have a Willie or a Sam (AUDIENCE: or a Sam) 

I’m her eighth old man named Henery,

I’m Henery the eighth I am.

SECOND VERSE (different from the first; different from the original too)

I’m not so good with money if I’m left upon me own,

So I called my mate, Dick Gresham, who could organize a loan;

I said, “I need the wonga, but I can’t afford the fleece,

Get terms I can afford or else we’ll end up just like Greece”;

Dick planned long finance, so he said, “thy will be done,

Your brood will still need Greshams’ help, I’d better pop a son.”

CHORUS 

I’m Henery the eighth I am, Henery the eighth I am,

I am I got married to the widow next door

She’s been married seven times before

Everyone was a Henery (AUDIENCE: Henery)

She wouldn’t have a Willie or a Sam (AUDIENCE: or a Sam) 

I’m her eighth old man named Henery, I’m Henery the eighth I am.

THIRD VERSE (different again!)

So Dick, he had a son named Tom, as smart as smart could be,

And when my Ted went brassic, Tommy saved the currency;

My Mary fared no better, Tommy had to bail her out,

And Liz retained his services, though she was more adroit.

All raise a glass to Tom, without him we’d be poor,

Bad money drives out good, I say, and call it Gresham’s Law.

CHORUS AND OUTRO 

I’m Henery the eighth I am,

Henery the eighth I am,

I am I got married to the widow next door

She’s been married seven times before

Everyone was a Henery (AUDIENCE: Henery)

She wouldn’t have a Willie or a Sam (AUDIENCE: or a Sam) 

I’m her eighth old man named Henery, I’m Henery the eighth I am. 

H-E-NRY, ‘Enery, (AUDIENCE: ‘Enery) 

‘Enery the Eighth I am, I am, Henery the Eighth I am! 

 

Gresham Song Page One of TwoGresham Song Page Two of Two

The Thomas Gresham Nativity Song With My Chords and Hand Written chords.

Click here or below for a link to see Harry Champion’s original version of this song.

 

Linda by Penelope Skinner, Royal Court Theatre, 28 November 2015

We received an e-mail from the Royal Court, fewer than 10 days before going to a preview of this show, to say that Kim Cattrall had withdrawn from the show on doctor’s orders and that Noma Dumezweni would start rehearsing about a week before the first preview.

Truthfully, we had not booked this production to see Kim Cattrall; we had booked it because we had been so impressed by The Village Bike, Penelope Skinner’s previous play at the Royal Court.  We had also previously been hugely impressed by Noma Dumezweni, not least in the lead of A Human Being Died That Night at the Hampstead Theatre in 2013 and more recently cross-dressing in Carmen Disruption at the Almeida earlier this year, so we were really not bothered.

Noma needed to work from book to a greater or lesser extent for most scenes our night, but she was almost there and we could tell that work was in progress for a great performance.  We loved the play and thought the supporting cast were all excellent.  Amazing staging too, so all the creatives have a lot to be proud of.

Perhaps because of the unfortunate circumstances or perhaps because we liked the production so much, we were hoping hard that the show would get great reviews and so, on the whole, it has – five great reviews linked here by the Royal Court.

Our friend (perhaps now former friend) Michael Billington was less sure about the play though generous with his praise of Noma, click here.  Ditto Paul Taylor in the Independent, click here.  

Still, top marks from both me and Janie, plus five out of seven from the critics; it’s a big hit.

Plaques and Tangles by Nicola Wilson, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 14 November 2015

This was a very interesting play at the Royal Court Upstairs. As usual these days, there is an information-packed stub on the Royal Court website – here, saving me much of the trouble to write about the basics.

I had been avoiding the subject of dementia for a while, but I guess we booked this some six months after mum died so I was starting to feel able to handle the subject again.

In many ways, this play was about a different type of dementia, as the protagonist has a rare genetic form of the disease that takes over the person’s life much younger and therefore far more invasively.

This difficult subject and the dilemmas that spring from it were handled with skill, dignity and humour in this play. Well acted and produced too.

Lots of rave reviews are linked through the reviews tab in the Royal Court stub – click here specifically for that tab.

Michael Billington was not so sure in Guardian – here...even less sure was Matt Trueman in WhatsOnStage – here.

Janie found the non-linear nature of the piece (moving backwards and forwards in time on several occasions in short scenes) more than a bit confusing. I think we were supposed to feel somewhat disoriented, to enable us to empathise with the protagonist.

Still, we were both glad to have seen this one.

 

A Further Education by Will Mortimer, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 6 November 2015

Janie had a bit of a brainstorm ahead of this one, turning up ludicrously late for our arranged pre theatre meal at Harry’s having lost all track of time that afternoon.

Add to that confirmation in my mind that Harry Morgans has gone plummeting down hill since its recent take over (we have not returned since), we arrived at the Hampstead frazzled and just in time to get good seats together downstairs.

In short, bad start to the evening…

…but a good play.

It needs some belief-suspension on the part of the audience; I cannot envisage the bureaucracy in a modern era university enabling an interloper into classes…perhaps back in my day the scenario might just have been possible…but the bundle of issues that the slightly dodgy conceit throws up are interesting, as is the interaction between the characters.

I cannot find a stub for this one, so various “news stuff” will have to suffice – perhaps ahead of some archive rejigging at the Hampstead end:

Downstairs, so of course no formal reviews either.

Oughttobeclowns blogspot liked it. As did we.

Stella Gonet (hadn’t seen her on stage for years) in particular was excellent, but the whole cast was very good indeed.

Deserves more than a short run at the unreviewed (and now seemingly unarchived) Downstairs at Hampstead. Oh well.