ajhlovestheatre

STANDING AT THE SKYS EDGE

Book by Chris Bush

Music and Lyrics by Richard Hawley

Directed by Robert Hastie

National Theatre/Olivier – until 25 March 2023

https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/standing-at-the-skys-edge/

After rave reviews from the original run at the Crucible Theatre, and overwhelmingly positive word of mouth here in London, I assumed I was going to love Standing At The Skys Edge, but Holy Sheffield, I didn’t expect it to be THIS good. A diverse cast on stage at arguably the most prestigious theatre in the land roaring through a state-of-the-nation piece developed by one of the most well respected regional houses is exactly what we need right now. But when the results are this fine, it goes further than that: this is a cause for rapturous celebration. Once you stop sobbing, that is.

Although more sophisticated in intent and execution, Standing At The Skys Edge has the same open-hearted ebullience as audience favourite Blood Brothers and deserves to achieve a similar longevity. Chris Bush and Richard Hawley’s brilliant, heartfelt creation also recalls the inspired Conor McPherson-Bob Dylan tearfest Girl From The North Country with it’s employment of pre-existing songs to complement and comment upon a searingly effective new script.

Bush’s mastery of a trio of female-centric stories, set in the same flat on the infamous Sheffield Park Hill estate but decades apart, is enthralling. Rose and Harry (Rachael Wooding and Robert Lonsdale, both delivering career highlight work) are a young couple moving into the brand new dwelling in the 1960s, full of optimism and overjoyed at having escaped the slums. Then there’s the family of Liberian refugees who move in during the 1980s (Deborah Stanley, Baker Mukasa, both wonderful, and an astonishing Faith Omole) when the estate has become rundown and plagued with crime; the modern tranche of the story sees affluent Londoner Poppy (Alex Young) relocating to the now-redeveloped area and nursing a broken heart. In clean, intelligent strokes, with salty, realistic dialogue, refreshing humour and a brace of vivid characters, Bush’s terrific text embraces community, social change, migration and gentrification, with a bracing theatricality.

It’s ambitious but entirely successful in director Robert Hastie’s sure hands. If it’s sometimes reminiscent of soap opera, that’s only because it’s so compulsive and relatable, how much and how deeply we come to care about these characters, and the way it interweaves ongoingly relevant issues – from racism to legacy to how immigrants are treated – into personal stories of hope and despair.

There’s a running theme between the stories, which I won’t spoil here (though there is a clue from the outset in Ben Stones’s starkly imposing set design) but it carries a massive emotional wallop when the realisation dawns, and feels like the hallmark of truly great storytelling. There is a scene near the end, which refracts an exchange of dialogue from early in act one through what we have since discovered, and which is one of the most breathtakingly brutal and ingenious examples of turning a moment on its head, that I can remember, and it’s heartbreakingly played by Omole and stellar newcomer Samuel Jordan.

Hawley’s songs, some of which originated on a 2012 concept album, range from achingly lovely to real bangers. There’s a lot of light and shade, and a variety of popular music styles, but the thundering, portentous title song that opens the second half is a particularly exciting highlight.

Anybody who still subscribes to the hackneyed cliché that “real” acting seldom happens in musicals needs to see this, which features some of the finest, most truthful performances on any current stage in the capital, right across the company. Watching the sunshine drain out of Rachael Wooding’s indomitable, adorable Rose, her contended family unit decimated by the destruction of the steel industry where her husband previously flourished, is deeply painful. Wooding’s beautiful portrayal is warm, open, and, crucially, unsentimental which makes it all the more moving. The way both she and Faith Omole’s appropriately named, and equally terrific, Joy age as the story progresses is a masterclass, aided in no small measure by intelligent costume and wig design.

Alex Young is spot-on as lovelorn, conflicted Poppy, and is likeable enough to mitigate against uncharitable thoughts about “first world problems” when her story arc is juxtaposed with the others. All three women sing like absolute dreams. There isn’t a weak link in the supporting cast either, with especially invaluable, full-throated contributions from Maimuna Memon and Bobbie Little as characters whose connections to the central storylines are only revealed later in the show. Baker Mukasa carves out an unexpectedly joyous showstopper from the number he leads.

Hastie’s staging is laser sharp, negotiating the gear changes from tender family moments to rioting and much in between, with real flair. His work is augmented by Lynne Page’s hypnotic choreography, pitched halfway between dance and mime, which invests “real” people with an unusual grace and power, while remaining grounded in a gritty naturalism.

I laughed a lot, I uglycried and I couldn’t get out of my seat fast enough at the end to join in with the most spontaneous standing ovation I’ve ever seen at the National – this is captivating, vital, haunting theatre, stunningly staged and performed, and the most emotionally satisfying British musical in decades. As well as being a great show, this feels like a major mass populist cultural event and exactly the sort of thing the National Theatre was set up for. Get in there, for a genuinely life-enhancing, power-packed experience.

PHAEDRA

by Simon Stone, after Euripides, Seneca and Racine

National Theatre/Lyttelton – until 8 April 2023

https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/phaedra/

Ah….so this is based on all of the Phaedras (Euripides and Seneca both had versions of the story) then rather than just Racine’s Phèdre, which is what we got in the last two London outings, with Glenda Jackson then Diana Rigg, for this seamy tale of lust, gore, jealousy and quasi-incest. Got that?! A very interesting programme article will tell you the difference between the multiple takes (the National’s programmes remain the most informative and best value for money in the capital) but what audiences really need to know is that this is very much Simon Stone’s Phaedra, and he has once again done what he effected upon Lorca’s Yerma at the Young Vic then subsequently in New York in 2016-7. In other words, this is a slick, searingly modern, riff on a classic, where you may find yourself digging deep to try to find any real connection to the original text, and which, once again, offers a humdinger of a female lead role. Yerma had a jaw-dropping Billie Piper firing on all cylinders (and deservedly winning every acting prize going) and here we get Janet McTeer in an enthralling return to the London stage.

McTeer plays Helen (formerly Phaedra) a prominent member of the Shadow Cabinet, living a life of Champagne Socialist luxury with her privileged family, brought up short by the arrival of her Hippolytus, here Sofiane, the slightly wild offspring of a now-deceased Moroccan lover, and played with a compelling mixture of saturnine intensity and the unknowable by Call My Agent’s Assaad Bouab, making a striking UK theatre debut. In this day and age, I’m not sure substituting political for Royal scandal makes the play any more shocking or relevant, but Stone’s expletive-packed, often ribaldly funny new text still makes for compulsive viewing. Or at least it would if Stone, as his own director, didn’t then proceed to shoot himself in the foot somewhat by using a Chloe Lamford set (think revolving Perspex box, antiseptic, elegant and not dissimilar to Es Devlin’s work on The Lehman Trilogy) that takes so long to change between scenes that energy, pace and connection are severely tested. Some of the gaps in onstage action are covered by an Arabic voiceover, simultaneously translated on a front cloth, which are the words of Sofiane’s dead Dad, trying to explain his absenteeism, selfishness and alcoholism. Interesting at first, that gets pretty repetitious and the audience is too often left sitting in pitch darkness then wondering what took so long when the curtain rises on new set pieces that don’t seem all that different from what we’ve just been looking at.

Tonally, the play is inconsistent, veering from social satire to arty drama to jet black comedy to blood-soaked melodrama, although it works perfectly well in each of those genres. If the observational comedy, and the examination of the gulf between people’s feelings and how they live out their lives, are the most successful aspects, the horrifying catharsis of the finale feels stuck in and slightly unearned, despite McTeer’s brilliance and the stark beauty of the stage picture, as though the author had suddenly remembered he was working from a piece of classic tragedy with its own plot trajectory.

All that said, there is a lot here to savour, primarily the performers. McTeer is magnificent: elegant, imperious, then vulnerable, very witty and then utterly disarmed at her own sexual reawakening. It’s hard to take your eyes off her, but Paul Chahidi and Akiya Henry match her superbly, with terrific comic flair edged with accurate underpinnings of real anxiety, as her husband and family friend respectively.

I also loved John MacMillan as her über-cool son-in-law, all tolerance and kindness until backed into an unacceptable corner, and Sirine Saba is haunting as the woman Sofiane left behind. Mackenzie Davis makes a potent impression as Helen’s disaffected daughter, although the character’s one-note moaning and ongoing self doubt get a little wearing. Bouab is a fascinating stage presence, even if the script doesn’t always give him the motivations to explain the character’s sometimes mystifying behaviour.

The fact that the entire thing takes place in a giant box, as though these people are part of an installation in some museum exhibition centred on how to totally fuck up your life, and the harsh mic-ing throughout (at no point does the dialogue sound remotely acoustic, despite the almost TV-like naturalism of the delivery), keeps the audience remote from the play and players. I assume that is a deliberate choice, but it is one that is likely to infuriate as many people as it delights. Stylistically, this very much feels like Yerma 2, but it’s a much less emotionally engaging experience, for all its theatrical panache and savage grandeur. For all that, Janet McTeer is unmissable, and so are several of her co-stars.

BUFF

by Ben Fensome

directed by Scott Le Crass

The Vaults, London – until 19 February 2023

https://vaultfestival.com/events/buff/

Director Scott Le Crass is becoming something of a specialist at staging flawless one person shows. His career-redefining revival of Martin Sherman’s solo masterpiece of Jewish history and survival, Rose starring an incandescent Maureen Lipman, transfers into the West End this spring and is on no account to be missed, and now with Ben Fensome’s highly entertaining Buff he comes up with another production rich in detail and dynamism but displaying total faith in the material and the central performer. Both entities here repay that trust abundantly.

Thematically, talking about body fascism on the gay scene is roughly akin to shooting fish in a barrel: we all know it’s there, most of us think it’s terrible, yet a surprisingly large number of allegedly intelligent people sadly buy into it. Similarly, with the bad manners and casual cruelty that can result from the consequence-free world of online dating, where everybody’s looking out for the next best thing and to hell with other people’s feelings, and the carefully curated online lives that get presented but frequently don’t match up with reality. Ben Fensome’s astute solo piece takes all this on board then digs deeper.

A full smorgasbord of gay issues, along with a fair amount of cracking humour, is filtered through the experiences of David O’Reilly’s newly single, plus-sized, early thirties London primary school teacher. This central character is a great role – authentically funny, eager to please, a little needy, too much in thrall to other people’s opinions, his wit masking an innate lack of self worth. The eyes linger just that little moment too long after making a quip or observation, the need to ingratiate, the body language is that of a person trying to disappear inside himself…it’s complex, entirely convincing, and performed with heartbreaking truth on a virtually bare stage, although when the acting is this accomplished you really don’t need decor.

O’Reilly, with his cherubic face, soulful eyes and the comedy timing of a true master, is an immensely appealing figure but he, and writer Fensome, don’t shy away from showing the less palatable aspects of the lead character’s personality when he finds his love unrequited and his life starting to fall apart. A nice touch by Fensome is making the unseen flatmate, the object of the lead character’s obsessive affection, sound like a pretty decent bloke and another victim of what people perceive from online perusing, except that in this case it’s that he’s not quite the arrogant gym-honed meathead he’s assumed to be.

If there’s a weakness in the writing, it’s that the switch from puppy dog to bitter bitch happens a little too abruptly and baldly, although O’Reilly’s sheer brilliance goes a long way towards masking the shortcomings. His breakdown is particularly impressively done, even as it’s painful to watch. The play lasts barely an hour though, and a little more fleshing out wouldn’t hurt. Still, this is impressive, timely, thought-provoking stuff, by turns screamingly fun then desperately sad. Well worth catching.

LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS

by Sam Steiner

directed by Josie Rourke

Harold Pinter Theatre, London – until 18 March 2023

https://www.haroldpintertheatre.co.uk/shows/lemons-lemons-lemons-lemons-lemons

When this revival of Sam Steiner’s much praised, internationally produced talk piece was first announced, eyebrows were raised at the astronomical ticket prices, especially given how short it is (originally advertised as seventy five minutes, although Josie Rourke’s glossy production is a bit longer than that) and that it only features two actors, even if, in this instance, they’re two of this country’s most bankable and appealing small screen stars. The charisma and star power of Aidan Turner and Jenna Coleman aside, there’s not much else here that justifies selling a vital organ to get a good seat.

I didn’t see any of the earlier iterations of Lemons x5, but I suspect it probably works extremely well in a tiny studio space. Unfortunately, in the (comparatively) cavernous spaces of a traditional West End playhouse like the Pinter, it starts to look like pretty thin gruel dramatically speaking, and suffers badly in comparison to Nick Payne’s Constellations and Duncan MacMillan’s Lungs, the two plays it structurally bears most relation to. Neither is it as striking and exciting as Steiner’s own You Stupid Darkness!, a bleakly comic apocalyptic fantasia seen at Southwark just prior to the pandemic, and rather more worthy of revival.

Turner and Coleman play Oliver and Bernadette, a youngish couple -he’s a musician, she’s a lawyer- in an alternative universe where the British government has introduced a “hush law” whereby citizens are limited to using 140 words per day. It’s an interesting idea, up to a point, and the idea of the UK being run by draconian, uncaring elitists at least feels topical. Ideologically Oliver and Bernadette are not immediately on the same page -he’s violently opposed to the bill, she isn’t automatically- and the play examines the impact of that on their relationship, while also looking at the impact of language, and what happens when it is drastically controlled or even cancelled altogether.

The problem is though, that Steiner’s script, which jumps around chronologically to sometimes confusing effect, tends to provoke more questions than it answers. If words are so precious, why do the couple tend to waste so many of them when the pressure is on? We see them using morse code but why don’t they communicate in sign language? How are the powers-that-be monitoring how many words people are using in the privacy of their own homes? What happens to rule breakers? And was the last minute revelation of an infidelity supposed to be as eye-rollingly obvious as it comes across? These holes are probably less evident when the audience is right on top of the action, but unfortunately a larger space tends to make Lemons x5 feel more like a drama school exercise than a fully fledged play, despite stretches of pithy dialogue and situations that ring true.

Rourke’s production, performed on set designer Robert Jones’s black circular disc in front of a neon-edged cyclorama filled with all the detritus of modern domestic life, is punchy but irredeemably chilly in spite of the chemistry between the two stars. Turner has the better role and he invests Oliver with magnetism and real charm. The likeable Coleman is fine, but Bernadette just doesn’t feel that interesting, which I think is a fault of the writing rather than the actress.

It’s perfectly watchable – in fact Turner consistently ensures that it’s even more than that – and at this length, certainly doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. It just feels a bit, well, beige. The advertising tagline for this production is that it’s “a love story that leaves you speechless” and that’s possibly quite accurate: you may well be struck dumb by how little you get for your money.

SOUND OF THE UNDERGROUND

by Travis Alabanza

co-created and directed by Debbie Hannan

Royal Court Theatre, London – until 25 February 2023

https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/sound-of-the-underground/

The Royal Court’s first main stage production of 2023 is up and not so much running as sashaying magnificently….and it’s truly special. Travis Alabanza, in tandem with Debbie Hannan, has created something hilarious, furious, rough around the edges, and fiercely intelligent. It’s a gorgeous but thought-provoking celebration of queer performance art, a lament for the shrinking number of London venues where such work thrives, and a defiant two fingers up to the gatekeepers of both mainstream theatre and (hello RuPaul) glossy TV-primed drag.

It starts with a statement of intent, as the eight artists who make up the cast head for the stage from the back of the house, spreading a potent mixture of mayhem and joy, laced with a little bit of danger, then introduce themselves, and give a brief indication of what’s about to go down (“we are putting our nightlife jobs on hold to be at this theatre…we’ve made a play!”) Actually, Sound Of The Underground isn’t a play in the traditional sense of the word, but then nothing about it is traditional. Divided into three discrete sections, it first uses a sitcom set-up vaguely reminiscent of Jordan E Cooper’s recent, undeservedly short-lived Ain’t No Mo on Broadway, except that where that used drag to explore the Black American experience, here Alabanza uses a similar tone and sensibility to look at the realities of operating as an artist in a very particular, often underrated, medium.

This self-consciously arch scene indicts a certain globally famous drag icon before exploding in anarchy, then transitions into a section which employs the classic drag trope of lip synching, but here to a pre-recorded verbatim script, the words being the cast’s own as they discuss/decry the difficulties -financial, social and spiritual- of working on the underground club scene. If at first, it feels cacophonous and random, it quickly becomes utterly mesmerising. As if to underline the point that a drag career, so often trivialised and dismissed by outsiders who either don’t know or don’t care, is bloody hard work, Alabanza and Hannan have the performers and stage crew laboriously dismantle the set while at the back of the stage Liverpudlian diva Ms Sharon Le Grand is painstakingly bewigged, dressed and made up to perform an operatically OTT version of the Girls Aloud track that shares it’s title with this show, to close the first half. If it feels like a lot of preparation for minimum pay off, it’s also a useful metaphor for the careers of these unique talents.

There’s pay off aplenty though in the second half when each of the stars gets to demonstrate their particular skill set in an off-kilter, lushly produced variety show, compèred with disdainful wit by the gloriously named Sue Gives A Fuck, a languidly potty-mouthed glamazon who raises sarcasm to an art form. Some of the contributions, such as Lilly Snatchdragon’s fan dance or Sadie Sinner The Songbird’s burlesque striptease, are straight-forward crowdpleasers, while others – Rhys’ Piece’s rapping or Midgitte Bardot’s thrillingly sung, wildly hilarious ascent towards the Court’s flies on a cherrypicker – achieve a lunatic brilliance that catapults the show into the realm of the truly original.

This reaches an apotheosis with Wet Mess, an athletic drag king-cum-clown who combines cute with chilling to astonishing effect, whether making a stage entrance from within a tied up bin bag or performing a crazed yet oddly beautiful dance that feels equal parts exhilaration and threat. The final spot goes to Chiyo whose spotlight moment starts as a cheeky strip but then devolves into a harrowing monologue where he bares more than his body in a reminder that, once off stage, anybody who doesn’t conform to societal and gender-based norms can be at considerable risk just for living their authentic lives. It brings the production and the audience up short, and it’s undeniably powerful, even if there is a sense of preaching to the choir, although that is a criticism that could conceivably be levelled at the entire show, for all it’s barnstorming outrageousness and invention.

Ultimately though, kudos is due to the Royal Court for giving this fabulous shower of diverse and exciting talents such a prominent and sumptuously realised platform (Simisola Majekodunmi’s lighting and the designs of Rosie Elnile and Max Johns are top notch), and it feels appropriate given that this is the venue that first gave birth to The Rocky Horror Show, albeit in the Upstairs space. Alabanza is a force of nature, and Sound Of The Underground will undoubtedly prove to be one of the theatrical events of 2023. Confrontational, bewitching and sometimes bewildering, it gets right to the heart of the punk sensibility of creative drag. You’re unlikely to have seen anything quite like this before, at least in a proscenium arch theatre, and you won’t forget it in a hurry.

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS

by Jill Hyem

Directed by Sally Hughes

The Mill at Sonning, Sonning Eye near Reading – until 11 March 2023

https://millatsonning.com

The delightfully picturesque Mill at Sonning offers comfort food both literally and theatrically in this converted 18th century flour mlll on a tiny island in the Thames, about half an hour by car outside Reading. After a very good buffet lunch or dinner, it’s a couple of steps into the semi-circular auditorium for a production that proves appropriate post-prandial entertainment for a well-heeled, predominantly silver-haired crowd. They’re not trying to reinvent the (water)wheel here, but it’s a formula that basically works.

Sonning is in an affluent commuter belt area, and Jill Hyem’s undemanding comedy, where the thought of retirement in a picture book cottage in Haslemere is the biggest trauma one of the principal characters has to face, is perfectly suited to this venue’s core audience. This is the sort of fare that might have run for years on Shaftesbury Avenue in the mid twentieth century and, despite references to Brexit and the internet, and the use of mobile phones, We’ll Always Have Paris feels like a throwback to that simpler era.

From the moment Elizabeth Elvin’s retired English headmistress Nancy arrives on Michael Holt’s attractive Parisian garret set unwrapping smelly fromages and whipping out baguettes and bottles of wine, it’s clear this is going to be a somewhat clichéd view of life in the French capital. That impression is further enhanced by the appearance of Charlot, Richard Keep’s ridiculously handsome, authentically accented odd job man, a Jean Dujardin lookalike with a sideline in serenading ‘Les dames anglais’ whilst accompanying himself on the guitar. Elvin and Keep have an easy, convincing rapport that transcends the slightly obvious nature of what they’ve been given to do.

Charlot enjoys an almost-romance with Natalie Ogle’s likeable Anna, newly widowed and in Paris to visit her friend, but it’s actually the friendship between the women, including potty-mouthed, cosmetically enhanced, sexually rampant Raquel (Debbie Arnold providing a welcome shot of raunch and glamour) that is the main point of Hyem’s script. In Sally Hughes’s nimble production, that aspect of the play lands extremely well: Elvin, Ogle and Arnold create a credible dynamic as a trio of privileged women who were once at school together but whose lives then took wildly differing paths.

Having established this relationship so well, it’s a shame that Hyem then slightly undermines her own, rather lovely, creation, by tying up Raquel’s storyline too neatly with an unlikely return to a rich former husband, a Vegas wedding and the suggestion she’s never going to see the other women again, thereby making one question the validity of these friendships in the first place. Ultimately though, We’ll Always Have Paris doesn’t need overthinking. There are moments when the script hints at darker undertows (for instance, Nancy’s distaste for Anna’s late husband or Charlot’s troubled relationship with Basienka Blake’s enjoyably monstrous Parisian landlady) and further exploration of those might make the play as a whole a little more tangy and tasty.

However, Hyem’s writing succeeds in capturing, quite beautifully, the slightly wistful yearning of us Brits (well, many of us Brits anyway) for the sheer elegance and joie de vivre of the City of Light. Dated and a bit safe this English take on a Boulevard Comedy may be, but Hughes’s classy staging and the nicely judged mood and performances will probably make you long to jump on the Eurostar. That said, as a brief escape from London, idyllic Sonning Eye will do just fine.

WE DIDN’T COME TO HELL FOR THE CROISSANTS

written by Nicholas Spagnoletti, Justin Oswald, Tertius Kapp, Jemma Kahn, Rosa Lyster and Lebogang Mogashoa

artwork by Jemma Kahn, Carlos Amato and Rebecca Haysom

directed by Lindiwe Matshikiza

Riverside Studios, London – until 4 February 2023

https://riversidestudios.co.uk/see-and-do/we-didnt-come-to-hell-for-the-croissants-52692/

Any piece of theatre that has Annie Lennox proclaiming “I came away with my mind slightly blown”, or better yet, sports on it’s flyer the quote “brilliant! it got me laid!” from a happy audience member, has got to be worth a look, right? And that’s before one even considers the title: We Didn’t Come To Hell For The Croissants must be one of the most amusing and intriguing show names in living memory, not to mention the longest. As it turns out, this South African, multi-authored one woman riff on the Seven Deadly Sins offers rather more than just a whimsical comic title and a series of outrageous pull quotes.

Cape Town based theatre maker Jemma Kahn, armed only with a kamishibai frame (a sort of Japanese equivalent to a toy theatre, where striking illustrations are slotted through to aid with storytelling), a couple of props, some serious comedy chops and a ton of attitude, rattles through an eccentric compendium of monologues, tales and musical numbers, ranging from the precious to the filthy. Not everything lands equally well, but when this magical artist and this show soar (which they mostly do), this is a biliously funny, sometimes unsettling seventy minutes of sheer theatrical chutzpah.

Kahn is mesmerising: a remarkable, shapeshifting combination of sexy, stern, chummy and borderline terrifying. The relish with which she intones a stunningly well written tale of unbridled lust at an unconventional dinner party, or delivers, in a flawless German accent, an increasingly chilling poetic dissection of a stalking obsession, are masterclasses in audience control, provoking titters of unease and amusement, and just occasionally abject shock. A quirky number about a pampered NYC puss with a trust fund also scores a bullseye.

The highlight for me though was the Rosa Lyster-penned section ‘Enemies and How to Love Them’ which starts as a Ted talk from a smugly successful female entrepreneur that becomes progressively more and more venomous, culminating in the bizarre but hilarious assertion that you’re nobody until somebody truly hates you. Most of the writing throughout the show is sensational: wry and tangy, with an elegance that suddenly becomes upended by an unexpected shot of sheer nastiness.

Trawls through the underbelly of human existence are seldom this life-enhancing. Lindiwe Matshikiza’s staging is ostensibly simple but has a subtle tension and sensuality, a certain seedy glamour, and is exquisitely paced. Kahn is the real deal, a unique stage presence with charisma to spare, and the ability to turn the atmosphere in the room from red hot to icy in the blink of one of her mascara besmudged eyes. Connoisseurs of juicy diva star turns should not miss her. Altogether, this is a rare dark delight. I can’t guarantee it’ll get you laid, but you’ll have a Hell of a good time.

AND THEN THE RODEO BURNED DOWN

written and performed by Chloe Rice and Natasha Roland

King’s Head Theatre, London – until 11 February 2023

https://kingsheadtheatre.com/whats-on/and-then-the-rodeo-burned-down

Existentialism, absurdism, clowning, vaudeville, country music and a gentle queer romance all collide in this strange but rather lovely show. And Then The Rodeo Burned Down is sometimes reminiscent of other, more conventional, plays – Waiting For Godot and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead spring most readily to mind – but has an off-kilter comic energy, suffused with a certain quiet melancholy, that is entirely it’s own.

Also unique is it’s form: defying conventional categorisation, the piece starts off as a sort of athletic, scattershot vaudeville with the two performers (New York-based creators Chloe Rice and Natasha Roland, sublime) bounding on, capering wildly, and applying clown makeup in between dance sections. A little bewildering at first maybe, but worth sticking with as the show becomes progressively darker and more intriguing. The dialogue when it finally comes is witty, elliptical, and all the funnier for being delivered with a winning sincerity, even vulnerability.

The story, such as it is, involves a rodeo clown Dale (Rice, utterly beguiling) who longs to upgrade to the lofty status of cowboy and whose progress is impeded and/or enhanced by their own shadow (a fully realised character, inhabited with gusto and mischievous charm by co-star Roland), as well as a dismissive headlining performer and a conscience-pricking bull escaped from the pen (both played by the brilliantly shape-shifting Roland). The piece turns into a bit of a whodunnit as the rodeo gets set on fire and they seek to find the identity of the culprit.

The plot matters less though than the playful, sexy, slightly edgy mood throughout. When the house is plunged into darkness in a mock power cut, the performers do a welcome potted summation of everything that we’ve learned thus far. It’s a useful moment for them and us to catch our collective breaths and regroup. No director is credited and one suspects the show might gain a little in clarity and focus from an assured directorial hand. Ultimately, if you like your theatre slick and with linear storytelling, this probably won’t be for you, but it has a haunting contemplative quality as it ponders questions of self awareness and ambition, which contrasts nicely with all the energetic meta-theatrical hi-jinks, that stays with you long after.

Chloe Rice and Natasha Roland have a magical chemistry that ensures that their hour long show is consistently watchable, even as it threatens to become irredeemably obscure at times. That said, at it’s most engaging, it’s genuinely captivating.

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

by Tennessee Williams

directed by Rebecca Frecknall

Almeida Theatre – until 4 February 2023, then Phoenix Theatre London 20 March to 29 April 2023

https://almeida.co.uk/whats-on/a-streetcar-named-desire/10-dec-2022-4-feb-2023

Comparisons may be odious but it’s pretty much inevitable that this new Streetcar will be compared to the Almeida’s triumphant 2018 reimagining of Summer And Smoke (same author, director, leading lady and some of the same design team) as well as to earlier iterations of this tricky but magnificent text (this is the fifth London revival in the last twenty five years, following productions variously starring Jessica Lange, Glenn Close, Rachel Weisz and Gillian Anderson as the tragic diva heroine Blanche Dubois). However, this is an unusually youthful reading of a play usually marinated in the disappointments of middle age, which duly casts it in a bold, bracing new light.

Even if the same team hadn’t already tackled (brilliantly) Summer And Smoke at this address, the parallels between the two plays is obvious, there being a direct line between the mental fragility and unconventional moral choices of Alma from the earlier play and Streetcar’s Blanche. Both women reflect Tennessee’s tortured, well-documented struggles with his own damaged, much wronged sister Rose. As in her earlier production, Frecknall employs music and sound to create a sort of fever-dreamscape that is as much a deconstruction of the text as a straightforward rendition of it, that gets right to the dark, broken heart of the piece. Where Summer featured a selection of beaten up pianos, Streetcar’s script is punctuated by necessarily jarring contributions from a sole drum kit and a hauntingly ethereal live vocal (Tom Penn and Gabriela García respectively, who tellingly become the two figures who take stricken Blanche away at the end of the play.)

If Frecknall’s vision is perhaps less revelatory than the knockout Gillian Anderson/Benedict Andrews Young Vic production, which was almost aggressively modern in its visual aesthetic, it has an intriguing timelessness that lingers in the imagination long after the show is over. It’s both raw and expressionistic: witness the way the boy Blanche callously shamed over his sexuality weaves in and out of the action, as though condemned to keep repeating his horrible death forever, endlessly traumatising our heroine in the process. Or how the seller of flowers for the dead contorts and abases herself on the floor, as though mirroring Blanche at her most drunkenly excessive. Even more potent is how the entire company, except for Dubois, group together at key moments, almost like a pack of watchful animals, to create a sense of community from which she is inevitably excluded. The use of water is reminiscent of Ivo van Hove but never feels as self-indulgent as it can with some of his work.

The play is staged in the round, thereby making direct engagement with these flawed, potentially dangerous people inevitable. The immediacy is profoundly effective and affecting and if Madeleine Girling’s design is spare, Lee Curran’s moody lighting works overtime, becoming almost another character in the production. In the second half, when the stakes raise to breaking point for Dubois, her disenchanted brother-in-law Stanley, sister Stella, and Blanche’s doomed liaison with the fundamentally decent Mitch (Dwane Walcott, excellent) the horizontal shards of light on all sides give the playing space the look of a combat arena, one where sheer muscle power looks set to triumph over delicate unreason.

That delicate unreason pours out of every pore of Patsy Ferran’s terrific Blanche by the end, although at first she just seems a little skittish and uncertain, if quietly manipulative. She’s neither the broken doll Rachel Weisz presented from the outset at the Donmar nor imperious like Anderson at the Young Vic. She’s thoroughly convincing, a fragile survivor whose nerves may be shot (the sudden volley of strikes to the drum kit on the upper level in her first appearance being indicative of her ongoingly unquiet mind) but whose victim status doesn’t feel inevitable, at least not initially. Crucially, she reads as much younger than any of her predecessors, so that when she refers to herself as being older than 27, it’s less of a comically grotesque lie, as it tends to play with significantly more senior actresses, and more a genuine concern.

Ferran’s late replacement of the previously announced Lydia Wilson aside, the big casting news here is screen star Paul Mescal as Kowalski. He does not disappoint. With his mullet, muscles and general air of a dirty bomb that could go off at any moment, Mescal is a dangerous, electrifying Stanley. He has a laid back laconicism that makes his sudden, and all too convincing, eruptions into savage, irrational violence all the more alarming, but he also allows us to see glimpses of a sweetness, even a tenderness, that makes Stella’s affection for him entirely plausible. This Stanley may not hint at the inner life Paul Foster fascinatingly gave him at the Young Vic but he is undeniably compelling; he moves stealthily, like an animal, which seems to be a recurring motif in this production, when taunting Blanche at the end and when he beats Stella it’s horrible but it feels as though he knows she’s better than him on every level, so this brute force is all he has.

Anjana Vasan as Stella is equally remarkable, probably the most authoritative yet sympathetic reading of the role since Essie Davis’s acclaimed performance in the 2002 Trevor Nunn production. She’s no simpering victim in sexual thrall to Stanley but rather a strong, intelligent woman who owns her choice to live here in the teaming urban squalor of Elysian Fields. The famed “what happens in the dark between a man and a woman” speech with which Stella justifies her relationship with Stanley to Blanche is less an erotic reverie or romantic whimsy but more like cold, hard facts. Her magnetic strength but sensitivity prove profoundly affecting as does the distressing suggestion at the very end that this Stella may descend in the same way as Blanche. I found it impossible to tear my eyes away from her whenever she was on stage.

The supporting cast, led by Ralph Davis and Janet Etuk as violently warring neighbours, are pretty much flawless. All in all, this is an illuminating, inventive revitalisation of a familiar piece and joins the darkly magical West End Cabaret as further testimony to Ms Frecknall’s claim to be among the most exciting directors of her generation. Good luck with getting a ticket though: best keep everything crossed for a transfer or a screening…either would be richly deserved.

SIX

by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss

Directed by Lucy Moss and Jamie Armitage

Vaudeville Theatre – open-ended run

https://www.sixthemusical.com/london

As it sashays triumphantly towards it’s fifth birthday in the West End, with sister companies selling out nightly on Broadway and across the US, the UK and Australia, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s rampant musical-concert hybrid, celebrating/commemorating the wives of Henry VIII, is an inspiring success story. I doubt they ever have to take down the Haus (House) Full sign from outside the Vaudeville Theatre where this glossed-up, spangled version of Lucy Moss and Jamie Armitage’s staging has taken up residence probably until such time as Hell freezes over…and rightly so. The show’s notoriety, both for being a riotously good night out and a tough ticket to get hold of, is a far cry from the student skit this entertainment phenomenon started out as.

After numerous cast changes (if anybody’s counting, London’s now onto it’s third Aragon, fourth Boleyn, second Seymour and Cleves, fifth Howard and fourth Parr, and that’s not including covers), the West End version remains in decent condition, although it feels like it could use a little bit of fine-tuning. While the current team of performers inhabiting Gabriella Slade’s dazzling (and now Tony award winning) rhinestone and metal studded Tudor-meets-Steampunk costumes certainly don’t drop the crowns from their predecessors, there are moments when it feels as though they would benefit from stronger direction. The voices are all terrific, the harmonies and execution of Carrie-Anne Ingrouille’s pop video-ready choreography are crisp; but not every zinger lands, and there are moments where an emotional depth that was previously there seems to be slightly compromised in favour of virtuosic riffing and a determination to meticulously recreate the now-iconic queenly poses from the poster (back arched, fingers splayed on an arm outstretched behind, microphone aloft and head thrown back in an ecstasy of belting). For all Six’s pretensions to being a concert, Marlow and Moss have created a genuinely witty script with a surprising undertow of real feeling. At present, it is undoubtedly fabulous entertainment, but it could, and can, be a little more.

What’s interesting to note as the run continues is how each new Queen gets to put her/their own stamp on the role. Some long running shows tend to succumb to “cookie cutter” casting, whereby each new company replicates what the last umpteen casts did to the extent that a certain blandness and lack of flavour can start to set in. Here though the current Queens bring their own vibrant personalities and attitudes to bear on Marlow and Moss’s witty, sometimes heartbreaking, creations, although in a couple of cases the characterisations could be more specific, an issue I suspect may have more to do with the way they have been directed than with the unquestionably stellar talents on stage.

Still, there is a heck of a lot to enjoy: if molasses had a sound it would be Rhianne-Louise McCaulsky’s thrilling vocals as an authentically diva-esque Catherine of Aragon, and Baylie Carson’s Australian accent adds an irresistible comic piquancy to their bouncy, cheeky, likeable Anne Boleyn. Claudia Kariuki invests Jane with welcome gravitas and a heart-meltingly gorgeous rangy belt, and also gets one of the funniest moments as Seymour reacts to Boleyn’s observation that she can’t dance (patently untrue, but even if it were, Kariuki’s voice would more than compensate).

As a show-stopping Anna of Cleves, Dionne Ward-Anderson is supercool where the role’s originator, Alexia McIntosh, was all irresistible warmth, but she is very very funny as she nips all the regal competitiveness in the bud by repeatedly declaring just how wonderful her life is, plus her lightning fast switches between inscrutably still and ragingly bonkers are a joy to behold. Koko Basigara cuts a more fragile figure than her predecessors as Katherine Howard and finds a fascinating, and necessarily disturbing, contrast between her bravado (“I think we can all agree / I’m the ten amongst these threes”) and the immeasurable damage done to a young woman by a short life of systemic abuse. She’s sexy and sassy but it’s her vulnerability that sticks in the memory as she makes something magnetic and haunting out of ‘All You Wanna Do’, the astonishing solo number which starts out as a fun dance track but darkens to leave her, and us, totally winded. Roxanne Couch is a lovable, vocally assured Catherine Parr, the one who outlived Henry, and probably the most relatable of all the Queens.

It’s also worth noting again that what’s nightly rocking the Vaudeville to its foundations is a subtly different beast from the production that began at the Arts in 2018. Having conquered Chicago, New York, Australasia and the High Seas, Six now has more of an assured swagger and opulence, as well as a considerably larger budget. Part of this will also be due to the weight of expectation: when it first appeared up at the Edinburgh Festival, the show was a wonderful surprise, but now everybody goes in knowing it’s reputation and expecting a party….and, by Henry, do they get one. The show’s warm heart, biting contemporary wit and powerfully female-centric agenda remain the same, but much of the dressing (Emma Bailey’s set, Gabriella Slade’s aforementioned costumes, Tim Deiling’s lighting and Paul Gatehouse’s sound design) is now slicker and brighter. The audience, for the most part, behave as though they are at a stadium rock concert.

Despite the minor reservations regarding detail in the direction of the current iteration, Six remains one of the best times you can have in a West End theatre. A glittering, primary coloured, bombastically full-throated paean to female empowerment and survival, packed with great songs and crowd-pleasing moments. The thought of this ever closing is roughly akin to the idea of the ravens leaving the Tower of London.