Tag: Rakie Ayola

The Glow by Alistair McDowall, Royal Court Theatre, 5 February 2022

Our first visit to the theatre for quite a while. The Covid pandemic stopped us in our theatre-going tracks back in March 2020.

Indeed we nearly missed out on this one. I had booked for us to see a preview on 22 January, but the week before the Royal Court wrote to me saying they had to cancel the first few previews due to…you guessed it…Covid.

I called to see if we could get decent seats to see the play relatively early in the run. I spoke with a helpful-sounding Royal Courtier on the phone.

Now let’s see. You were booked in seats E9 & E10 for the preview…

…I can offer you E8 and E9 exactly two weeks later, the evening of 5 February.

Problem solved, I thought. But mischievously instead I said:

…but E8 & E9 is not the same thing as E9 & E10.

I heard a gulp at the other end of the phone, so I thought best to put the poor fellow out of his misery quickly.

…joking! Problem solved.

Ironically, as it turned out, no-one sat in E10 on the evening itself and someone rather tall was sitting in front of E8, so we did, in the end, occupy E9 & E10.

But that’s not so weird a story, whereas the play is a seriously weird story. Here’s the teaser:

Here’s a link to all of the on-line resources at The Royal Court website.

I thought the play was wonderful and awe-inspiring. A sort-of pastiche of scary folk tales and fables, a sort of exploration into perennial abuse of women through the ages and the meaning of autonomy.

Alistair McDowall’s plays are a bit like that. Janie and I both absolutely loved Pomona…

Pomona by Alistair McDowall, Orange Tree Theatre, 15 November 2014

…whereas The Glow split our jury, as had X – the other McDowall we had seen at the Royal Court some five years ago. Janie found elements of The Glow disturbing and was disconcerted by the extreme time-hopping involved.

Janie was not quite as disconcerted as the young woman who was sitting in front of us, who nearly jumped out of her skin at the coup de theatre that signalled the end of the first half of the play. The young lady told us after the play that she had recovered herself and enjoyed the play as a whole.

Kate Wyver in the Guardian gave the play/production a rave review.

As did Sam Marlowe in The i...

…and Sarah Crompton in WhatsOnStage.com

Whereas Nick Curtis in the Standard is less sure about it…

…and Lloyd Evans in The Spectator votes it “the worst production of all time”, which only supports my general view that the very best6 plays/productions to some extent at least divide the critics.

This search term – click here – will find you plenty more reviews, including those above.

My own praise for the fascinating play also extends to the superb cast. Ria Zmitrowicz was truly excellent in the lead, ably supported by Rakie Ayola, Fisayo Akinade and Tadhg Murphy. Vicky Featherstone sure knows how to direct and produce this sort of play – who knew?

Not the easiest watch for those easing their way out of the pandemic, but if you want to see a full tilt piece of spellbinding theatre, The Glow might well do the job for you. It certainly did so for me.

I

Strange Fruit by Caryl Phillips, Bush Theatre, 15 June 2019

I have long been a fan of Caryl Phillips‘s writing; I discovered his novels in the mid 1980s and have several of his books in hard cover.

So I was excited to see that he had written a play, although, when I booked Strange Fruit at The Bush, I didn’t realise that it was an early work, written in the early 1980s, prior to the first of the novels.

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

Below is the trailer:

I think Janie and I saw a preview, although it is hard to tell at The Bush when press night might be without doing deep research.

In any case, we found the production slick and the acting truly excellent.

Written and set in the early 1980s, the play covers some fascinating aspects of African-Caribbean culture and issues from that time, many of which resonate strongly with issues of migration and identity in our current troubled times.

In truth, the play is somewhat unsubtle, starting in a rather tinny, scene-setting style and tending towards melodrama at the end, in ways that Caryl Phillips clearly ironed out as a writer very soon after writing this play.

But there are flashes of brilliance in the writing and the characters, while somewhat stereotypical, are tragic and engaging.

In fact, the whole piece is engaging throughout; although the play is rather long for the simple story it tells, the piece held our attention throughout.

This is not a play that will cheer you up if you seek some light entertainment. It will make you think about the issues and if you like visceral drama then it is most certainly for you.

Formal reviews, if or when they come, should be available through this link – click here.

Bush Theatre
The Bush Theatre at night. Photo by Guy Bell –
licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

The Bush does not shy away from producing plays of this kind and that’s one of the reasons we like the place so much.

Each Day Dies with Sleep by José Rivera, Orange Tree Theatre, 8 July 1995

We thought this was a very good production. José Rivera was not a well known writer back then, pre Motorcycle Diaries, but we chose this on the back of interesting sounding subject matter and the quality of stuff we were getting at The Orange Tree, which was on a bit of a roll at that time.

From the bowels of my memory, I recalled it as sort of magical realism…

…so I was delighted to see that Michael Billington used that term in the first sentence of his review. At one point Billington suggests that the production was as if Tennessee Williams had been done over by Pedro Almodovar. No wonder we really liked it.

Billington on RiveraBillington on Rivera Wed, Jul 5, 1995 – 83 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com