Category: Theatre

English by Sanaz Toossi, The Other Place, 13 May 2024

We saw a preview on our first night in Stratford-Upon-Avon. The next day, we went back for a talk and discussion with several of the creatives for this production.

Janie and I really enjoyed this play/production. We had just arrived in Stratford on a four-day short break and were quite tired that evening. Nevertheless this play held our attention throughout, making us smile., laugh and think in equal measure.

It is set in an “English As A Foreign Language” class in Karaj, Iran, c2008. A class of four, each with their own reason for wanting or needing to attend this class and gain a “Test-Of-English-As-A -Foreign-Language” certificate are taught by a hugely enthusiastic Iranian woman who loves the English language and tries to instil that enthusiasm in her variously enthusiastic, reluctant and/or cognitively-conflicted students.

A recipe for some interesting drama, which is exactly what we got.

The RSC does good stubs for its productions these days – here is a link that tells you all about it, so I don’t have to.

As we saw one of the last previews, I suspect that little will have changed since we saw this production. Having said that, as we ascertained at the talk/discussion the next day, director Diyan Zoya is very hands-on in working with a cast to improve continuously throughout and beyond the preview period.

In the discussion, we saw and heard from not only Diyan Zoya but also Maria Tarokh (movement and cultural advisor) and Sara Amini (assistant director text and dialect). The discussion was led by Conrad Lynch, who has produced the show.

We thought the play and production excellent. Reviews have started to come out (he says, writing just a few days after the press night). This link is a search term that should find most or all of them. The reviews so far have been mixed, with Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph not liking it a lot and Arifa Akbar in The Guardian slamming it. Yet it gets good or excellent reviews from Amya Ryan in the Times, Michael Davies in WhatsOnStage and Catherine Love in The Stage to name but three others.

Perhaps best to see it and judge for yourselves – Janie and I thought it was 90 minutes very well spent in the theatre.

Howzat? Missing – Going Way Down The Off-Side: TESTMATCH by Kate Attwell, Orange Tree Theatre, 4 May 2024

It looked like such a good idea in the flyer months ago…

We love The Orange Tree Theatre and try to support as much as we can, especially when it gets around to promoting new writing on topics that interest us.

We love cricket. That includes women’s cricket. We were there at Lord’s when England Women played India Women in the World Cup Final in 2017:

When Everything Went The Right Way, Women’s World Cup Final, Lord’s, 23 July 2017

TESTMATCH by Kate Attwell is described in all its detail on The Orange Tree website – click here. For those who don’t like to click, here’s the central synopsis that hooked me and Janie for two [did you see what I did there?]:

Lord’s, present day. It’s the Women’s Cricket World Cup: England versus India. There’s a rain delay. Tensions mount, ambitions are laid bare and a whole new tactical game begins. Calcutta in the eighteenth century. Two British administrators in colonial India encounter challenges on the field of play that threaten the entire regime.  

In this game of integrity and power, past and present collide. Kate Attwell’s funny and provocative play explores and explodes the mythology of fair play. 

Extracted from The Orange Tree blurb for TESTMATCH

You’ll also spot some good-looking summary reviews if you click that link, so might conclude that Janie and I are in a minority when we report that we both found this play and production a dud.

Heaven knows, I might sometimes look like a caricature of an MCC member trying to look young and hip at Lord’s…

What do you mean, TRYING to look hip?

…but I’ll have you know that Janie and I were watching women’s cricket and I was campaigning for women to be allowed into The Bowlers’ Bar at Lord’s before several of the current England and Middlesex players who play at Lord’s were even born.

The problems we had with TESTMATCH were many and varied. We thought the script repetitive, the jokes mostly unfunny and the important points, of which there were many, delivered without subtlety and often with counter-effective impact if impact at all.

In truth, the whole piece felt like an excuse to discuss a whole heap of very real issues around race, gender, commercial power and fair play, delivered like me trying to hit the cover off a cricket ball with a long-handled bat – i.e. terrible mishits such that they either missed the metaphorical ball completely or hit that metaphor up in the air for a dolly catch.

We are used to suspending belief for theatre, but the notion that such conversations and action could possibly take place in The Lord’s Pavilion during a rain interval in a major women’s international match shows ignorance of how professional the women’s game has become in the 20+ years since Janie and I started following international women’s cricket.

And don’t get me started on the notion that women cricketers might have been advocating roundarm and/or overarm bowling at the time of the Great Bengal famine.

It was hard to tell whether the cast was limited by ability, the script or some eccentric directing, but the style of delivery came across to us as more like “try hard am-dram” than professional performance.

But heck, if you are considering seeing this play, you should read the theatre reviews, which I hadn’t read before writing the above. On the whole, they support our criticisms, but come down far more favourably on this production than we did. Click here for links to reviews.

For me, the highlight of the evening was getting to bowl at one of the performers a couple of times at the end of the interval. Had I realised it was supposed to be 1770, I’d have bowled underarm. And had I realised that my 20-30 mph dobblers would seem fast in the restricted space of The Orange Tree, I’d have tried to bowl even slower than usual.

Is it possible to bowl slower than this?

A member of the audience even praised my bowling as we left. A gentleman who is easily pleased, he might well have also enjoyed the play.

Out Of Season by Neil D’Souza, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 2 March 2024

We really enjoyed this play.

It is a simple story about a trio of 50-something fellas who were a band when they were college age, returning to the scene of their exploits in Ibiza 30 years later.

Neil D’Souza not only wrote the play but also plays one of the lead parts, very convincingly – actually all of the actors do so: Catrin Aaron, Kerry Bennett, Peter Bramhill and James Hillier being the other four. Alice Hamilton does a grand job from the director’s chair.

Here is a link to the Hampstead resources page for this production.

The play is a comedy but it has a thoughtful and edgy twist to it too. In particular, the second half starts off full of fun and laughs, but soon “bloke meets woke” in a rather shocking way, changing the tone and bringing the story home in a nuanced way.

We really like comedies that have enough going on that we still have stuff to talk about over a meal or two afterwards. This is one of those.

Here is a link that should find plenty of reviews, which seem to have been very good almost universally.

If you only read one review, I’d suggest Anya Ryan’s from the Guardian which pretty much sums up how Janie and I felt about this piece.

Running until 23 March 2024, if you catch this write-up early enough there’s still time.

Jab by James McDermott, Finborough Theatre, 24 February 2024

There’s something gloriously quaint about the Finborough Theatre. Even by the standards of pub theatres, it seems gloriously wedded to the past.

In part, that’s because The Finborough is, at least at present, a few rooms above a corner building that used to be a pub, rather than an actual functioning pub.

But also, it is the sort of place that clings to its roots, even in the matter of archaic ticketing practices. These days we receive, when booking The Finborough, a very modern style e-mail ticketing with a QR code for each e-ticket. On arrival at The Finborough, though, the ticket office still asks for your name and digs out the old-style paper tickets, just like the old days.

Don’t you have a gadget that goes beep and reads our e-tickets?

I asked the nice young woman on the desk.

Do we look like the sort of place that has a gadget that goes beep to read tickets?

She asked in repsonse.

Not really. Except that you did send us -tickets with QR codes on them.

I persisted.

We have no idea why they do that.

The nice young woman thus closed that discussion.

Anyway…

…the reason we go to the Finborough is not to admire the ticketing system. We tend to see consistently good small-scale theatre there.

Jab was no exception. A very good two-hander set during the Covid-19 pandemic, about a marriage that disintegrates during the crisis…although you sense that the marriage had been doing a fair bit of disintegrating prior to the pandemic.

Here is a link to the Finborough Theatre production stub for this show.

Very well acted and directed. Kacey Ainsworth, Liam Tobin & Scott Le Crass take a bow…well, the first two named actually did.

Just 80 minutes long, if you like your shows two hours plus this type of play is not for you. Janie and I have really acquired the taste for shorter plays. Never mind the young folk having short attention spans, we older folk have short buttocks-stuck-in-one-small-space spans these days.

Lots of good reviews for this one and deservedly so. Here is a link to a search that should find many such reviews.

We went home thoroughly satisfied, theatre-wise. After collecting and then, once home, eating our Mohsen dinner, our appetites for food were also thoroughly satisfied.

This Might Not Be It by Sophia Chetin-Leuner, Bush Studio,  3 February 2024

Photo of The Bush Theatre by Spudgun67, CC BY-SA 4.0

Our first visit to the theatre of 2024 and it was worth the wait.

Set in an NHS mental health service unit for juveniles, the play tells the simple story of a youngster who enters the workplace imagining that he might make a difference in a hurry.

Then reality bites.

The play is beautifully written by Sophia Chetin-Leuner, and very well directed by Ed Madden, who should, if nothing else, pick up a nominative determinism award for directing this particular piece.

Despite the plethora of short scenes, the story and characterisation develop organically and clearly over the 90 minutes or so of the piece. I had to suspend a fair bit of belief around the central conceit that a youngster might implement an NHS patient administration system alone in just a few weeks without encountering or causing any profound issues, but that only proves that I have spent too much of my working life thinking about informatics.

The cast all performed their parts convincingly, with top marks to Debra Baker who played the “seen it all before administrator” Angela.

Denzel Baidoo was the most comedic of the three, playing the naïve trainee Jay. One short scene, set to music, when Jay thinks he is alone in the office will live long in our memories.

You should be able to find formal reviews here, through this search. Mostly very good.

If you are reading this piece soon after I have upped it, you have a chance still to see this production at The Bush, as it has been extended to 7 March. In Janie’s and my opinion, it deserves a transfer to gain a wider audience. It is a fun piece that made us both laugh a lot, but it also tackles a great many pertinent issues of our times in a thoughtful and warm-hearted way.

To Have And To Hold by Richard Bean, Hampstead Theatre, 18 November 2023

Since lockdown, we’ve not been going to the theatre anything like as much as we did before. Partly, I suppose, because we got out of the habit. Partly, we think, because there is not so much to our taste on offer, as theatres tend to play it safe, with many more revivals and musicals on offer than we remember in the past.

Indeed this was our first visit to the Hampstead Theatre since lockdown, although we have kept our membership going throughout. Our previous visit to Hampstead theatre was to see The Haystack, just before lockdown.

The Haystack by Al Blyth, Hampstead Theatre, 7 March 2020

In these difficult times, Janie and I wanted to see something light-hearted and yet with some serious aspects to it. This looked like it would fit that bill and indeed it did.

Janie and I tend to enjoy Richard Bean’s plays – we have seen several. To Have And To Hold was an enjoyable evening at the theatre.

The play avoided the worst excesses of drama about elderly parents, which can easily fall victim to tired cliché and, in our case, a sense that “we can get all that at home”!

In the event, I read a bit more into the play than Janie did, until we discussed it afterwards. Janie sensed that she had gone with the comedic flow of the play without reading as much into it as I had. In particular, I thought there was interesting irony and pathos in a nonagenarian, sharp-sensed former policeman being scammed, at least in part because of his digital exclusion as well as his physical frailty.

Great cast for this one: Alun Armstrong, Marion Bailey, Rachel Dale, Hermione Gulliford, Christopher Fulford and Adrian Hood. All played their parts well, under the joint directorship of Richard Wilson and Terry Johnson.

Here is a vid of the two Richards (Wilson & Bean) discussing this play/production:

The reviews, as is often the case with Richard Bean plays, seems to have divided the critics. Click here to find many/most of the reviews if you wish.

Word-Play by Rabiah Hussain, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 29 July 2023

The Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square by Stacey Harris, CC BY-SA 2.0

This was our first visit to the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs since before the pandemic. Until then, we were fairly regular visitors to that small space. Our previous visit, in 2019 had been a rare miss for us…

Midnight Movie by Eve Leigh, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 30 November 2019

Word-Play was definitely not a miss for us, far from it, although Janie did find the short scenes with the actors playing different characters in different times and places more than a little disconcerting.

But we both agreed that the acting by all five cast members; Issam Al Ghussain, Kosar Ali, Simon Manyonda, Sirine Saba, and Yusra Warsama, was superb. Many of the scenes worked terrifically well, especially the more intimate ones. Word-Play is a very ambitious piece of writing and we shall certainly look out for Rabiah Hussain’s work again.

Here is a link to the Royal Court resource for this play/production.

This link should find plenty of reviews, most of which are good or very good – one or two not so.

It’s running until late August 2023 and we would certainly recommend this innovative piece of theatre if you get to this page in time to get a ticket.

Cuckoo by Michael Wynne, Royal Court Theatre,8 July 2023

Artwork grabbed for identification & to assist The Royal Court with this link

Janie and I really enjoyed this play/production, which we saw in preview. The acting was superb. The direction and design very high quality, as we have come to expect at The Royal Court over the decades.

This play was seemingly superficial, yet beneath its slight surface are some fascinating issues of our times. The “joke” that this family is spending its together time with each individual surfing their own virtual world quickly became tiresome – especially as some of audience members nearby were finding it hilarious. But that humorous conceit was soon revealed as a foreshadowing of some darker elements of the characters’ inner/virtual worlds.

Yes, as some of the critics have said, not a lot happens, but this particular “not a lot” is both amusing and highly thought-provoking.

OK, I have a confession to make.

When I booked this, my main criterion for booking it was a recollection that one of Michael Wynne’s previous plays, The People Are Friendly, had pleased us both a lot.

2002, we saw this at The Royal Court (not yet Ogblogged)

Soon after the start of Cuckoo, which shares a couple of the lead actresses and Royal Court production aspects with The People Are Friendly, I realised that we had not liked The People Are Friendly; we found it soap-opera-ish and not to our taste. I was confusing The People Are Friendly with Richard Bean’s England People Very Nice:

England People Very Nice by Richard Bean, Olivier Theatre, 7 February 2009

I shall revisit the play text of The People Are Friendly before writing up our 2002 experience, as it is possible that I will read more into that play now than we did 20 years ago.

Anyway, apologies to Messrs Wynne and Bean for the confusion. The word “People” in the title shouldn’t be enough for such a muddle really. I just jumped to a conclusion…

…and talking of conclusions, Janie and I both thought the ending of Cuckoo was really rather wonderful, both as a coup de theatre and also as a piece of stage design.

Here again is a link to The Royal Court resources on Cuckoo, which is running until mid August.

While this link should find most/all the formal reviews for you, if you like those and/or don’t trust our judgment.

NewsRevue, Canal Cafe Theatre, 6 July 2023

Artwork grabbed from Canal Cafe Website for identification/link purposes and because I know that Emma won’t mind

NewsRevue has been running for ever. OK, not quite for ever, but since 1979. It is the world’s longest running live comedy show, as affirmed by a Guinness World Record. Some people describe it as “The Mousetrap of comedy”, except in this case it is perfectly acceptable for me to confess, “I dunnit”.

I wrote for the show from 1992 until I ran out of steam towards the end of the 1990s. But I still hang out with the self-styled Class of ’92, e.g.:

Class Of ’92 Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner, Café Rouge Holborn, 5 October 2017

We’ve lost some great characters over the years. In the last 12 months, sadly, we lost our founder and mentor, Professor Mike Hodd.

So when Emma shouted out that the Edinburgh run this year was to be at the Pleasance Grand, was dedicated to Mike and that the show would be previewing for a short while at the Canal Cafe Theatre, I decided to make the effort. (Not much effort in my case crossing from one end of W2 to the other). I checked my diary, booked a convenient slot and shouted back that I had grabbed a seat on Table 2, suggesting that other “Ninety-Two-niks” might choose to join me.

In the event, Barry Grossman, Mark Keegan, Jonny “Two Phones” Hurst and a couple of members of Jonny’s visiting family made up our table.

The show is good, as I’d expect for an Edinburgh run.

Lots of big numbers – a long Spice Girls medley to start and similarly long Queen one to finish.

Slightly less variety of material, in my opinion, than in our day, but then the culture of a fairly large group of comedy writers gathering most weeks, sharing ideas and watching the show before scattering to the four corners of the South-East and writing stuff…is ancient history.

Some of the news stories felt very early 1990s – an exhausted, useless Tory Government unable to control its (and our) own destiny. Royal family nonsense…we even had a “Camilla Queen” section of the Queen medley which echoed interestingly the late great Debbie Barham’s “No Camilla Queen” song from the mid 1990s.

I could go on…

…actually I already have.

It was great to see fellow writers at the Canal again – we usually meet in chain restaurants these days – and it was great to see the show again – my first visit since the pandemic.

Previewing in London until 23 July, then running in Edinburgh in August

A Brief List Of Everyone Who Died by Jacob Marx Rice, Finborough Theatre, 20 May 2023

Janie loved this piece. In truth, I found it a little mawkish.

The short scenes only occasionally allowed enough space for the emotional impact to flourish.

Lights out theatre?

To be fair, the piece did “exactly what it says on the tin”, in terms of cataloguing the deaths that enter the orbit of one character, Graciela, throughout her life.

Being The Finborough, of course it was all very well acted and extremely well produced, within the limitations of one of the most pint-sized theatres above a pub anywhere.

Let us not forget that The Finborough won “Pub Theatre of the Year 2022” despite there not being an actual pub below then or indeed now.

All the cast were very good, but Vivia Font stood out in the lead role, morphing from tantrum-ready nipper to accepting oldster via all the stages of life in between.

Here is a link to the rubric about the play/production. If that link ever goes awry, try this link instead.

Reasonably well received, this piece. Click here for reviews.

There was a Q&A with the playwright and cast afterwards, but we didn’t stay for it, hungry for a Persian meal that we would not be able to procure after the Q&A.

On exit, we ran into one of my real tennis friends, Tony Joyce, and his good lady. I thought this was quite a coincidence, especially as they are not regular Finborough-istas – indeed they were trying the place for the first time. Tony agreed, not least because, as he said:

…we two couples made up nearly a quarter of the audience.

Slight exaggeration that – I think the place has room for 40 or so people each performance, but still.