ajhlovestheatre

SIX

by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss

Directed by Lucy Moss and Jamie Armitage.

Vaudeville Theatre – open-ended run

https://www.sixthemusical.com/london

Historically, some of musical theatre’s most phenomenal successes have emerged from unexpected sources: an antiquated novel about miscegenation and lost theatrical milieus (Showboat), a hokey play set in a rural American dust bowl (Oklahoma!), Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet transplanted to 1950s New York (West Side Story), an anthology of children’s poetry (Cats) or a classic French epic tackling injustice and revolution (Les Misérables). On paper, none of these sound likely to provoke queues round the block let alone become globally acclaimed triumphs inspiring dozens of imitations of varying quality. Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s dazzling musical-concert hybrid Six, celebrating/commemorating the wives of Henry VIII, is another such example: what sounds gimmicky at best in theory, turns out in practise to be a rip roaring triumph.

The glossed-up, spangled version of Lucy Moss and Jamie Armitage’s staging that has now taken up residence (probably until such time as Hell freezes over) at the Vaudeville is a subtly different beast from the production that packed out the tiny Arts Theatre from 2018 until the pandemic. Having conquered Broadway (seriously, good luck with trying to get a seat for the NYC Six without having to pony up a couple of hundred dollars) and Australia, the London show, technically more elaborate and clearly on a bigger budget than when it first opened, now has a new swagger and opulence. Part of this is the weight of expectation: when it first appeared up at the Edinburgh Festival, Six was a wonderful surprise, but now everybody goes in knowing it’s reputation and expecting a good time…. and, by God, do they get one.

What’s so lovely to note though is that the show’s warm heart, contemporary but biting wit and powerfully female-centric agenda remain fully intact, even as much of the dressing (Emma Bailey’s set, Gabriella Slade’s costumes, Tim Deiling’s lighting and Paul Gatehouse’s sound design) becomes slicker and brighter. If anything, this version may be the most satisfying yet, as though Armitage, Moss and their team of directing associates have gained confidence to further mine the darker aspects of the women’s stories.

There seems to be more authentic emotion in Jane Seymour’s soaring Adele-like ballad ‘Heart Of Stone’ than ever before, more genuine distress in Katherine Howard’s astonishing ‘All You Wanna Do’ (a breathtaking examination of systemic emotional and physical abuse couched in an increasingly creepy dance track, brilliantly choreographed by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille) and more urgency and agency in the women’s bickering and fallings out. The entertainment level is sky high, but so are the emotional stakes: the title song that closes the show where the Queens briefly articulate an alternative reality where their lives were less grim has a real poignancy now that actually enhances the joy of all the fist-pumping exhilaration.

An entire new company take over soon but it was a pleasure to get one last glimpse of Jarneia Richard-Noel’s adorably stroppy Aragon, Alexia McIntosh’s barnstorming Cleeves and Sophie Isaac’s thrillingly steely but vulnerable Howard. The alternates and swings get on a lot – the show is a relentless workout for it’s cast plus there’s a nine performance schedule per week – and, at the recent performance I caught, half of the Queens were covers, and they were all sensational: Cherelle Jay as a sassy comic Boleyn, Hana Stewart belting the roof off the theatre as Parr and a luminously beautiful Seymour in Collette Guitart. The standard of talent involved is stellar, and I can’t wait to go back and see the next team. Despite delivering the same script, songs and staging as each other, it’s fascinating to watch how each performer brings their own stuff to each role, keeping the show endlessly fresh. I also suspect it’s just a matter of time before Six fields it’s first trans Queen, since the show is already a beacon of diversity in an industry that is still struggling with that.

If when it first opened, the excitement, snap and brilliance of the show seemed too good to be true, now it really does look built to last. Glorious, uplifting and, yes, regal: it’s thunderously good entertainment, a Coronated crowd-pleasing slice of musical theatre heaven.

THE SUGAR HOUSE

by Alana Valentine

Directed by Tom Brennan

Finborough Theatre – until 20 November

https://finboroughtheatre.co.uk

Nobody who sees this award-nominated Australian drama is likely to accuse playwright Alana Valentine of lacking ambition. The Sugar House is stuffed to the gills with incident, loaded with significance and weighed down by the passing on of trauma and tradition through family generations.

Set in what is now the chi-chi Sydney waterfront suburb of Pyrmont, the play moves between 1967 (when the district was industrial and working class) through the turbulence of change in the 1980s to 2007 when wealthy internationals are looking to buy expensive apartments in the converted mills and warehouses of the area. One such building is the sugar refinery that gives the piece it’s name. It was once the focal point of the Macreadie family because that’s where the breadwinner worked but now, or rather 2007, legal whiz kid granddaughter Narelle is viewing flats there. It turns out there is a lot more to Narelle than her high powered career and extended spending power though, and that is much of the meat of the play. Cue repeated metaphors along the lines of sugar rising to the top of the molasses.

Valentine’s script is powerfully female driven, the seismic changes in the sociopolitical landscape of Australia’s second city being filtered through the experiences and relationships of three generations of Macreadie women. There’s matriarch June, tough as old boots in the homestead but an ingratiating wheedler when faced with external power, endlessly favouring her feckless criminal son over her damaged but resilient daughter Margo, who in turn is mum to rebellious Narelle. So far, so clichéd.

Thing is, all of this basically works. It may not feel particularly original, except that for English audiences the Aussie setting may seem novel, but these tropes still make for compelling storytelling, rather like a novel on stage. The first act in particular feels like an adaptation from a different medium, with it’s big emotions, big themes and garrulous, impassioned talk. It’s when Valentine makes her characters step outside the expected that the play loses credibility, or at least it does in Tom Brennan’s energised but heavy handed staging.

There’s not a lot that doesn’t get thrown at the wall here, from urban gentrification to self harm, activism (as a student, Narelle becomes an agitator to uncover the reasons behind sundry deaths in police custody, a passion that is bewilderingly shelved in one line when she scores a fancy legal internship) to terminal illness. It doesn’t coalesce, but neither does it bore, despite some of it seeming pretty unbelievable.

Brennan’s production is strongly cast and features a pair of superb professional stage debuts from Jessica Zerlina Leafe, skilfully negotiating and differentiating Narelle’s stages of development, and Leah Dube as a fierce interloper into the family via marriage. As June and Margo respectively, Janine Ulfane and Fiona Skinner make a formidable mother and daughter, even if the characters are pretty hard to care about. Adam Fitzgerald imbues the adored son Ollie with warmth and energy, but lacks the requisite blunt brutishness. Patrick Toomey does really beautiful work as a number of senior male figures.

The use of projections on the walls of Justin Nardella’s corrugated iron-meets-urban chic set are an invaluable help in establishing time and locale.

Some of the dialogue feels overwritten, the playwright’s undeniably eloquent words sounding unconvincing coming from the mouths of some of these characters, and the play could do with some judicious cutting. Despite all this, it is refreshing to see new-ish Australian writing on the London stage, and I would be very interested to see more of Valentine’s work.

PRIDE & PREJUDICE* (Sort Of)

by Isobel McArthur after Jane Austen

Directed by Isobel McArthur and Simon Harvey

Criterion Theatre – open ended run

https://www.criterion-theatre.co.uk/pride-and-prejudice-sort-of/?&eventid=7001

Every so often a little show comes along pretty much unheralded and without star casting that strikes a chord with audiences and critics alike, and ends up sticking around in the West End for years: think The Play That Goes Wrong, Six, Stones In His Pockets, The 39 Steps, Reduced Shakespeare Company (the last two of these were of course long term occupants of the Criterion on Piccadilly Circus, where Pride & Prejudice* (Sort Of) looks likely to remain for the foreseeable future). Yes folks, here’s another to add to that illustrious populist list. Despite a somewhat unwieldy title (which makes total sense once you see the show, which you absolutely must), this is the sort of joyful comic romp that will appeal to all ages (although be aware there is some swearing, if you’re planning to bring youngsters) and is likely to get a lot of repeat business from patrons curious to see what they missed while their heads were thrown back in mirth on their previous visit.

Written by Isobel McArthur “after Jane Austen”, it’s one of the most cheeky and charming examples of having your theatrical cake and eating it that I’ve ever encountered; for the brilliant McArthur (who co-directs (with Simon Harvey), plays Mrs Bennet AND Mr Darcy, and also plays piano and accordion because, well, why not…) has created a skilful spoof of Austen’s beloved novel and the sober-sided ways it’s often dramatised, as well as a remarkably complete rendering of the actual story itself. It’s very clear that, for all their inspired mucking about with it, McArthur, Harvey and their team have a great deal of affection for, as well as a formidable working knowledge of, Pride & Prejudice the novel.

What they bring to it is crazy comic invention, phenomenal energy, raucous anachronisms (“Darcy wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire!”), genuine wit …and karaoke. The all female quintet who roar through this life-enhancing spectacle playing multiple roles are sensational physical and vocal comics who miraculously still find the kernels of truth in what they are doing, thereby sending the already highly amusing up into the comedy stratosphere. It’ll be a long time before I forget Hannah Jarrett-Scott’s fantastically arch, screamingly funny Caroline Bingley trying to woo Darcy while discrediting Meghan Tyler’s glorious Northern Irish Elizabeth Bennet, or the sight of Jane Bennet (Christina Gordon, lovely) on a full size horse gamely pretending that the water pistol repeatedly fired at her by Tori Burgess’s hysterical younger sister is an unexpected rain shower. The five performers are just magic together, and “Comedy Staging” specialist Jos Houben should probably get an honorary Olivier award for this work on this.

Here’s a world where the catering at a society ball includes Wagon Wheels and Irn Bru (the production originated in Scotland), or where characters emerge from a modern day rubbish skip (a Jane Aust-bin….their joke, not mine) in full Regency dress and brandishing percussion which they then play, where Mr Bennet can occupy quite a lot of stage time but is never actually seen, or where Elizabeth can suddenly produce a mic and start berating Darcy with a rather terrific version of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain”. Despite all the fun (and there is a heck of a lot of that), there emerges a very strong sense that in Austen’s world the men had the power but it was the women who drove things.

It looks good too: the costumes are nicely mock-lavish, and Ana Inés Jabares-Pita’s gorgeous set, a circular book-festooned staircase climbing into the flies, mirrors the colour scheme and patterns of the Criterion’s own dust-pink and cream auditorium and even features a replica of the theatre’s own chandelier.

The second act falters a bit, almost as though the creators had realised that they were so busy showing us a good time that they’d forgot there was still quite a bit of the plot to cram in, and could probably lose about twenty minutes. By the end though, the audience is spontaneously on it’s feet, galvanised by an unexpected but entirely delightful rendition of the Candi Staton disco classic “Young Hearts Run Free” from the junior Bennet sister who has hitherto been banned from singing at family parties (the fabulous Burgess again).

This show is nuts: Austen as the adorable love child of Mischief Theatre and Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, with a large dash of Laura Wade’s The Watsons and the National Theatre of Brent. It takes you to that smashing place where you just can’t stop laughing. Is it perfect? Well, no. But is it the funniest show currently in the West End? Absolutely.

INDECENT PROPOSAL

Book and lyrics by Michael Conley

Music by Dylan Schlosberg

Inspired by the novel by Jack Engelhard

Southwark Playhouse – until 27 November

https://www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/show-whats-on/indecent-proposal/

“I had a really good time tonight” – actually no, not a line from Pretty Woman: this is from this new stage adaptation of an equally problematic slice of late twentieth century ‘romantic’ storytelling. Unlike the critically mauled Broadway tuner over at the Savoy however, Michael Conley and Dylan Schlosberg’s tangy and surprising chamber musical is only “inspired” by, as opposed to slavishly following, it’s source material, and furthermore they’ve gone for the original novel rather than the Robert Redford-Demi Moore Hollywood treatment that followed it.

The central premise – obscenely wealthy man offers a financially straitened couple $1million if the wife will spend the night with him – remains deeply icky, but book writer Conley has taken multiple liberties with the original story and characters, and added layers of interest. The title could put people off – indeed Rowan Pelling wrote an impassioned, cogent piece in the Telegraph pre-pandemic arguing that neither Indecent Proposal nor Pretty Woman were an appropriate basis for modern musical adaptation – but what has landed on the Southwark stage, under the sure and sensitive hand of director Charlotte Westenra, is rather more intelligent and careful than one might have expected.

Perhaps the musical’s strongest suit is that it establishes swiftly and strongly just how much Lizzy Connolly’s luminous Rebecca and Norman Bowman’s moving, would-be songwriter Jonny love each other, how high the stakes are for them (they both left other partners, and in her case, a life of considerable luxury) and how highly regarded they both are in their Atlantic City community. We also see very early on how much they are struggling financially. Furthermore, Rebecca, in Connolly’s terrific performance – witty and nuanced -has agency, intelligence and integrity, and is categorically not a victim of masculine machinations. The attempt then of entrepreneur and all round moneybags Larry (Ako Mitchell, vocally exciting but lacking the requisite suave charisma) to put their union asunder feels particularly obscene.

Structurally, it’s nearer to a play with melodic interludes than a traditional musical, most of Schlosberg and Conley’s attractive songs being presented as the numbers performed in the cabaret lounge at the boardwalk casino where Rebecca works and Jonny sometimes sings. The lioness’s share of these songs go to Jacqueline Dankworth’s blousy but lovely older chanteuse… and any show that starts off with this unique, impeccable talent is off on a winning streak, to employ a gambling metaphor (sorry, just had to), and her second act rendition of the melancholic, bittersweet paean to Atlantic City, is a real standout. Only the two leads sing within the context of the story, and they’ve been given some really belty, exciting stuff to get their magnificent voices around. All in all, this is an impressive soft rock score, rather superior to several of the newer musical adaptations of films currently in the West End.

If Westenra’s staging is short on opulence it makes up for it in energy, and dramatic urgency. Having the supporting cast double as the band is a particularly nice touch.

The cyclical nature of the storytelling is an excellent touch that pays genuine emotional dividends. Creditably, it doesn’t shy away from the morally complex, painful central issue. For some people this may make it unappealing subject matter for a musical but then neither are the themes of many other well regarded hits (Evita, Sweeney Todd, Pacific Overtures…the list is endless). While I’m not suggesting Indecent Proposal is in the league of these classics, it’s really a rather marvellous surprise.

THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH

by William Shakespeare

Directed by Yaël Farber

Almeida Theatre – until 27 November 2021

Live stream: 27 – 30 October 2021

https://almeida.co.uk/whats-on/the-tragedy-of-macbeth-live-stream/27-oct-2021-30-oct-2021

Thank goodness for live streamed performances. Otherwise you’d probably hate me for telling you that South African director Yaël Farber has come up with the most magically sinister, exhilaratingly imaginative production of this most visceral of Shakespearean tragedies, featuring a London stage debut by Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan that really does deserve all the superlatives already heaped upon it, that the whole thing is basically unmissable…but that, no, you can’t actually see it. Well, not unless you’re prepared to spend half your life on the Almeida website trawling for returns. But in fact you can watch it, even if not actually in the room. The live streamed performances are next week and I can’t wait to see it again, albeit on screen this time, as there’s so much to digest and revel in here.

Farber is a visionary but she needs a strong text, hence her vivid, earthy Crucible for The Old Vic eight or so years ago, and now this haunting, ethereal yet brutal Scottish play. At her best, she illuminates these male-centric scripts in exciting, bracing ways: having the title character appear and get sexy as Lady M fêtes him during the first letter scene is a lovely touch here; similarly, having the all-seeing trio of ‘Wyrd Sisters’, who never leave the stage, maternally cradle a deliriously distressed Macbeth at the height of his hysteria, makes a certain sick sense. Her visually striking but risible 2019 Salome was a disaster because it felt like a slick of good ideas weighed down by a barely-there text (much of which was in Aramaic, for God’s sake) and a ton of pretension.

That most emphatically is not the case with this partly modern dress take. Admittedly, the three hour running time made me blanche a little when I read about it (Macbeth is the shortest of the tragedies, and has been done sans interval many times so as not to break the tension) but strange theatrical alchemy is afoot here, and it is so spellbinding you barely notice the length. Actually, I was so invested and engrossed I was genuinely nonplussed when the interval came.

This is the Scottish Play as a sort of dark, vaguely hipsterish ritual (the monochromatic aesthetic of Soutra Gilmour’s set and Joanna Scotcher’s costume suggests something satanic going down in a particularly dark branch of AllSaints: refined yet raw, elegant but unsettling) yet it never feels gimmicky. It’s not without humour either: I’ve never seen such an alarmingly funny account of the banquet scene where Macbeth loses it upon seeing the bloodied ghost of Banquo while Lady M tries to hold the party, and him, together.

On the flip-side, the scene where the Macduffs are slaughtered has seldom seemed so distressing (Akiya Henry is a thrillingly fierce Lady, fighting like a tigress to save her doomed children) and it’s a stroke of genius, as well as making psychological sense, to have Lady Macbeth bear appalled witness to it, thereby precipitating her tip over into madness. Note the way that Tim Lutkin’s gorgeous but restrained lighting, outstanding throughout, warms up to a golden glow for the brief moments of domestic happiness in the Macduff household before the heavies move in; the rest of the time, the illumination is cool, atmospheric and sinister.

If some of the verbal poetry is sometimes missing, it’s fascinating to hear authentic Scottish accents speak the text (Ronan’s Lady is Irish, Gareth Kennerley’s Doctor is Welsh) and lending it new cadences and energy, while Tom Lane and Peter Rice’s omnipresent sound score – Aoife Burke’s exquisite mournful cello augmented by electronic sounds and instrumentation – achieves a dislocating, edgy poetry of it’s own.

James McArdle is magnificent in the title role, rugged, laddish and pleasingly ‘normal’ at the beginning but convincingly degenerating into a howling wreck, probably as dangerous to himself as to others. His embittered spitting out of the “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech when learning of his wife’s death is a fascinatingly unconventional spin. Saoirse Ronan’s terrific Lady Macbeth is a compelling combination of wraith-like physicality, nimble intelligence and formidable determination: there is a moment when you see her realise that all is lost, and it’s like watching a light go off behind her eyes. She’s steely yet delicate, and completely unforgettable.

Emun Elliot’s raw breakdown when Macduff learns of his family’s fate is an astonishing piece of acting, and Ross Anderson brings a quiet ferocity as well as a muscular nobility to Banquo. Diane Fletcher, Maureen Hibbert and Valerie Lilley, androgynously suited and booted as what used to be called the witches, offer an object lesson in stage presence. Michael Abubakar and Richard Rankin impress as Malcolm and Ross respectively. There isn’t a weak link in the cast, and yet, superb though everyone is, the whole is ultimately greater than it’s parts, moving in a satisfying cycle as thought to suggest that the central protagonists, and by extension, all of us, will never be fully free from the clutches of the Wyrd Sisters and what they represent.

As the play reaches it’s climax and the embattled, crazed Macbeth receives his just deserts, the round stage floods with water and ghostly light (reminiscent of the LePage Dream at the NT’s Olivier, for those of us old enough to remember it) and Akiya Henry’s wailing vocals reach hypnotic fever pitch, there is little doubt this is one of the most exciting and inventive versions of this well worn text that we are ever likely to see. It’s an absolute triumph, one of the productions of the year: three hours to sit through and probably years to get over.

WHITE NOISE

by Suzan-Lori Parks

directed by Polly Findlay

Bridge Theatre – until 13 November

https://bridgetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/white-noise/

First seen off-Broadway at the highly prestigious Public Theater in 2019, this incendiary provocation of a play has likely grown in intensity and relevance in the intervening two years, with it’s mouthy, sardonic but clear-eyed take on modern race relations, and uncomfortable truths about toxic masculinity and bad sisterhood. It is also a remarkable example of the playwright having their metaphorical cake and eating it too, as it’s so rollickingly funny, for the most part, but when things get dark (and, blimey, do they get dark) it’s genuinely shocking and chilling.

Suzan-Lori Park’s slowburn, savage script disarms us at first with a warm, funny monologue for Leo (Ken Owusu, superb), a sweet, slightly fragile, young Black artist with a creative block, keen intelligence and a nice line in self-deprecating humour. We learn about his former relationship with Misha (Faith Omole) who is now with his long standing best friend Ralph (James Corrigan) who in turn is an old flame of Leo’s current partner, hot shot lawyer Dawn (Helena Wilson). It looks like we might be in for a spiky modern American comedy about a pair of interracial couples with a convoluted past.

Two things happen – one of which strains credulity a tad, the other one of which (Leo’s the victim of unprovoked, race-based police brutality) is sadly all too believable – which proceed to blow the whole status quo sky high, leaving the Black characters questioning their place in the world as well as the veracity and value of their relationships. Leo’s response to the attack (and the sole aspect of this otherwise magnificent play that I didn’t fully buy) is to initiate a forty day experiment where he acts as a “slave” to his white friend. If it doesn’t feel psychologically convincing that a highly educated, sensitive POC would react in such a way, the responses of the other characters (Faith Omole handles Misha’s outrage with particular brilliance) most certainly do, and the play becomes a scorching examination of the emotional and spiritual fallout.

The white characters start to display unedifying superiority tendencies, their latent prejudices laid bare, especially in Ralph’s case. Corrigan brilliantly charts his journey from puppyish if manic to terrifyingly calm, dead-eyed privilege. Parks gives each of the characters plenty of zest, substance and intriguing back story, much of which is only fully revealed in the beautifully crafted quartet of monologues studding the longer second half like little explosions of outrage and discomfort. All four actors deliver vivid, energised, technically flawless performances: they are a stellar team.

If Polly Findlay’s enthralling production occasionally feels compromised by being staged in a semi-traverse that exists mainly to represent the shooting range where some of the piece Is set, it moves from uproarious laughter to shocked, dazed silence in the blink of an eye, and moves at a hell of a pace.

Something with this much on it’s mind has no business being this entertaining, it makes the political deeply personal. Parks is a terrific writer and this is a cracking night out, one you’ll be thinking about and discussing long after the show. I loved it.

BROKEN LAD

by Robin Hooper

Directed by Richard Speir

Arcola Theatre/Arcola Outside – until 6 November

https://www.arcolatheatre.com/whats-on/broken-lad/

Kudos to the Arcola for finding a solution to the ongoing Covid situation by moving their entire performance operation to the outdoors for the time being. Arcola Outside has the same rough-and-ready charm as the adjacent main building, a decent sized stage, and an attractive, well-stocked bar, but with lots of air flow and plenty of room for social distancing. I guess there’s not much to be done about the amount of din coming from nearby Dalston Junction but one would hope that they’re planning to implement some sort of heating as the winter comes on, as it could get uncomfortably cold when the weather turns.

Plummeting temperatures or not, patrons planning to experience the first new play presented in this space may feel the need to take heavy advantage of that aforementioned well-stocked bar. Unfortunately, Robin Hooper’s so-called comedy is a bit of a stinker, a whiney, misogynistic dirge that would have seemed a bit dated in the 1980s but manages to look simultaneously offensive and aimless when viewed through the prism of 2021 sensibilities.

Comedian Phil, in a game performance by Patrick Brennan, was once a stalwart of primetime TV but is now reduced to gigging in rundown pubs. As he readies himself for his hopeless next set, his assistant-cum-manager Ned, an unhelpful variation on the “lonely old homosexual” trope, looks on – when he can tear himself away from the gay dating apps – with an unlikely combination of support and lust (yep, he has long held a torch for the unappealing Phil, which makes no sense at all until he also reveals that his celebrity crush is one Boris Johnson, so…yeah…his taste in men is unconventional, to say the least).

Also circling are Phil’s sulky son Josh (Dave Perry, doing a lot of pouting and staring) who’s trying to work out if the old man has bonked his shrill girlfriend (he has), and, inexplicably, Phil’s sourly disapproving ex-wife (Carolyn Backhouse, doing her best in a thankless role). I can’t remember the last time I saw a play where none of the characters had a single redeeming feature, and Hooper’s script is sketchy on whether or not Phil is even any good as a comic. Certainly, the bit of his act that we get to see (through an upstage window, which is plenty near enough, to be honest) is borderline obscene and about as funny as a flag at half mast, while his offstage shtick consists mainly of warming over end-of-the-pier gags that weren’t particularly amusing even back in the ‘70s.

Even more mystifying is the sexual thrall Phil seems to hold a couple of the other characters in. Maybe Hooper was trying to create an English Lenny Bruce or a modern variant on John Osborne’s Jimmy Porter, but what we get is a wheedling loser with bucket loads of self pity and a decidedly dodgy take on gender politics: apart from the divorce, his biggest problem with his ex seems to be that she was a successful businesswoman who was financially independent of him. This low level misogyny extends through the script to Josh’s girlfriend Ria (Yasmin Paige) who had been a fan of Phil’s when she was a teenager (er…why?) and is now also an incest survivor who slips into bed with both the comedian and his ghastly son. All this doesn’t so much stretch credulity as strangle it, especially during the melodramatic confrontations, and there is never a satisfactory reason for us to care about the fate of any of these unsympathetic individuals.

Richard Speir’s staging is big on pacing about but lacks pretty much any subtlety, a problem exacerbated by the open nature of the space, where all the outside noise requires all actors to be mic-ed up, although when the script is like this I’m not sure that catching every line is really doing anybody any favours. All in all, this is a depressing evening, one that wastes the talents of some fine actors, and it’s a rare misstep in the Arcola’s usually superb programming. I suppose it could be argued that Jim Davidson’s recent TV embarrassment lends this unpleasant piece a certain topicality with it’s theme of reactionary, past-it comedians getting their comeuppance. The best thing I can say about is that it only lasts 90 minutes. Feels a lot longer.

LOVE AND OTHER ACTS OF VIOLENCE

by Cordelia Lynn

Directed by Elayce Ismail

Donmar Warehouse – until 27 November

https://booking.donmarwarehouse.com/events/1001ADGKSHLJDTDBJQTBMGLLJRLBJCMNN?_ga=2.6078067.1530587493.1634045699-900632422.1634045699

The birth of a new star is always a source of theatrical excitement and it’s been a while since we’ve seen a professional debut as impressive as that of Abigail Weinstock, the sole female cast member of this powerful new play, a triumphant reopening production for the Donmar. Weinstock plays a young Jewish research physicist, a beautiful, brittle, brilliant young woman with a sardonic edge and, as becomes clear as the play progresses, a mother load of inherited trauma. It’s a terrific role, and Weinstock inhabits it fully, unforgettably, capturing every nuance of this complex character. She also, later, plays one of her ancestors, another intelligent, sensitive soul but one unfortunate enough to be living in the Polish city of L’viv in 1918, the year of the Lemberg Pogrom.

If much of the epilogue of Cordelia Lynn’s finely tuned script feels apocalyptic, that’s because, to the Jewish people caught up in this seismic, vicious concerted attack, that’s exactly what it was. Interestingly though, and perhaps controversially, Lynn’s text seems to suggest that the perpetrators of atrocities are condemned to be haunted by their own actions in a similar way to their victims.

Director Elayce Ismail and the creative team of Basia Bińkowska (design), Joshua Pharo (lighting) and Richard Hammarton (sound) collaborate on a terrifying scene transition. The thunderous aural effects, moments of stark illumination, and debris raining from the skies, are followed immediately by a final sequence of quiet, agonised tension that tellingly, tragically ties up all loose ends in the script while forcefully hammering home the point that, in the most extreme examples of humans being irredeemably cruel to each other, nobody ever wins.

Prior to the lengthy, historical epilogue Lynn’s play is an edgy, often bleakly funny two hander about an unlikely, but entirely credible, dysfunctional relationship between Weinstock’s character (named in the programme as ‘Her’) and the nervy activist poet (Tom Mothersdale, delivering some of his career best work to date) who picks her up at her own party. The fault lines in the relationship and the eruption into bodily harm and anti-Semitism are not easy to watch, a fact exacerbated by the accuracy of the performances and production (fight director Yarit Dor’s work is alarmingly, uncomfortably convincing, especially given the intimate nature of the venue). Much of this is pretty hard to stomach, despite being shot through with some jet black laughs, but stick with it as the relevance to modern day issues and the emotional catharsis are a satisfying, essential pay-off for going through the wringer.

If initially the play resembles Patrick Marber’s Closer and Nick Payne’s Constellations, both of which highlight the unexpected brutalities sometimes lurking within romantic/sexual liaisons, Lynn goes several steps further, allowing her principal figures to descent into actual physical violence. Her dialogue style is tart, taut and realistic, sliding periodically into something richer and more poetic. As a writer she seems intriguingly drawn to the “what if”s of an allegedly civilised world descending into chaos (her 2018 play One For Sorrow at the Royal Court covered similar terrain) and the initial humour of this new piece gives way pretty quickly to appalled alarm as we begin to realise that the two main characters are inhabiting a universe where anti-Semitism segregation is the acceptable norm. It’s both a dystopian fantasy rooted in reality, and a warning… and it feels horribly topical. There’s also a scene change that is an authentic coup de theatre.

Unafraid to pull it’s punches, Ismail’s beautifully orchestrated production is a grimly exciting 100 minutes, with a pair of outstanding performances from Mothersdale and Weinstock. There are many plays that chronicle the disgusting treatment meted out to Jewish people throughout history, but here’s one that makes an explicit connection between historical wrongs and the present day. It’s devastating, dark and rich …and in Ms Weinstock we could be looking at the next Arterton or Atwell. This is one not to miss. What a way to reopen this powerhouse venue.

THE NORMAL HEART

by Larry Kramer

Directed by Dominic Cooke

National Theatre/Olivier – until 6 November 2021

https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/the-normal-heart

One of the seminal plays of the AIDS generation, Larry Kramer’s 1985 text is a howl of outrage written in blood, fury, grief and bewilderment, epic in scope but intimate in detail. Subsequent plays, such as Tony Kushner’s Angels In America or Mathew Lopez’s The Inheritance, cover similar terrain with more finesse: the early to mid 1980s when a baffling, devastating disease ripped through the gay community laying waste to countless young lives, dreams, relationships and expectations. However, Kramer’s play is a different beast, pitched halfway between drama and reportage, and the immediacy and authenticity of it’s vision retains the ability to knock the breath out of the viewer, screaming at us down the years like a newspaper headline.

I’m not sure though how clear that would be though if your only exposure to The Normal Heart is Dominic Cooke’s underwhelming new version. It starts with a striking visual image, which recalls Declan Donnellan’s original Angels In America that played just around the corner in what used to be the Cottesloe, with the entire company watching a flame of remembrance being lit then borne aloft into the Olivier flies before the stage erupts into a raucous 80s gay club vibrating to Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’.

From then on though, theatrical excitement is in rather short supply. For starters the venue is all wrong: even in the round the National’s Olivier stage feels huge (the original productions played at the Public in NYC and the Royal Court in London, both of which are comparatively tiny, and the searingly brilliant 2011 all-star revival played at the second smallest house on Broadway) and serves here to make an already declamatory script feel more and more like a series of bellowed set pieces and shouting matches, with several vital moments rendered invisible to large sections of the house due to the in-the-round set-up.

The sheer size of the house makes emotional connection harder to achieve, a problem exacerbated further by a couple of lacklustre performances, some dodgy accents and an uncertainty of focus. The lack of human engagement needn’t necessarily be an issue in a play so fierily political as this one, cataloguing the monumental failures of the US presidential administration, NYC Mayor Ed Koch and the New York Times to acknowledge the health disaster unfolding, but it does run the risk of making the script seem like a series of dry list recitals rather than real drama. Cooke’s chilly staging, neither brutal nor funny enough, definitely errs in that direction, keeping the audience at a further remove by having the scene breaks and locations announced by the actors in their native Brit accents. It should come at us with the urgency of a high speed train that gets stopped dead in it’s tracks when the unfolding tragedy gets personal, but, at least on the night I saw it, it felt like an under energised meander.

There are some powerful moments though, mostly down to Ben Daniels, genuinely magnificent in the central role of Ned Weeks (who basically IS Larry Kramer by another name). Daniels masterfully charts the man’s journey from defensive wit through bewilderment then bone-rattling fury at the plight of his gay brethren and the apparent general apathy to it, before utter, debilitating grief as he loses his beloved (Dino Fetscher, whose performance grows in stature as his character tragically disintegrates) to the dreaded epidemic.

Daniel Monks and Luke Norris do truthful, passionate work as a pair of contrasting men engaging in the fight against AIDS and the broken status quo. The only woman in the cast, Liz Carr, is a glorious force of nature in real life but seldom finds the fire and dynamism in the irascible, outspoken doctor (Ellen Barkin on Broadway all but set the house ablaze in her precious few minutes of stage time), and is disappointingly flat.

This remains a landmark play but it doesn’t suit the Olivier. What should knock us sideways feels, for the most part, timid and worthy. In the wake of the pandemic and the onscreen triumph of It’s A Sin, this could have felt like a major cultural event for 2021. It’s frustratingly lacking in catharsis and rage.

Photograph by Johan Persson

& JULIET

Music and lyrics by Max Martin

Book by David West Read

Directed by Luke Sheppard

Shaftesbury Theatre – open ended run

https://tixtrack.shaftesburytheatre.com/tickets/series/andjuliet/

A musical that riffs on Shakespeare while plundering the back catalogue of one of the most successful and prolific songwriters in pop history (Max Martin, who is only not a household name because he prefers the spotlight to be on the interpreters of his work: Backstreet Boys, Britney, Celine, Katy Perry, even Pink and Bon Jovi….you’ll have heard of them) was always destined to be either a car crash or a triumph. & Juliet joyously and thrillingly inhabits the latter camp (and I use the word “camp” deliberately). Throw in Luke Sheppard, a director equally at home with detailed sensitivity and balls-to-the-wall flamboyance, one of the writers of Schitts Creek in David West Read, a music video-savvy choreographer (Jennifer Weber), a cast of diverse, beautiful and supremely talented humans, and a quirky but world class design team working at the height of their abilities, and you’ve got theatrical ecstasy.

Of course & Juliet is a heck of a lot of fun, a gorgeous confection packed with sensational performances, rousing numbers, good/bad jokes and enough baubles, bubbles and flash to induce a migraine in those who prefer their theatre stuffy and formal. But what may come as a surprise is how intelligent and moving it also is: a witty brain, a genuine affection for the works of the Bard of Avon, and a warm, kind heart lurk just beneath its glittering exterior. The pandemic seems only to have upgraded its exhilaration and deepened its well of feeling….and it was pretty damn special to begin with.

Taking as it’s starting point the idea that Shakespeare’s Juliet didn’t swallow the poison when she thought Romeo was dead but got the hell out to wreak some havoc of her own, abetted by a disapproving nurse with an outrageous past of her own and a pair of best friends who egg her on while challenging her world view, it’s an anachronistic, primary coloured fantasia where sexuality, gender, body shape, even fidelity, are of zero importance compared to being true to oneself while not being an arsehole to everybody else. It’s full of attitude but equally full of love: the inclusivity and sheer joie de vivre it espouses is just what we all need after the last nineteen months.

It’s also probably the prettiest spectacle you’ll ever clap eyes on (sets by Soutra Gilmour, costumes by Paloma Young, lighting by Howard Hudson, video and projection by Andrzej Goulding): a breathtakingly inventive parade of colour and whimsy that whisks the players from a mythical Paris complete with twinkling mini-Eiffel Tower and dry ice obscured Metro signs to a fairground ride eyrie suffused with twinkling stars while also evoking the idea of being backstage during a work in progress (the ensemble are characterised as Shakespeare’s acting company working on a troubled first draft of Romeo & Juliet). This rolling buffet of visual delight is further enhanced by Gareth Owen’s sound design which skilfully marries the gap between rock stadium rambunctiousness and making the characters sound like real people. Dominic Fallacaro’s orchestrations help enormously with this too, making the pop classics sound familiar yet excitingly new minted.

When the show closed due to the pandemic, Miriam-Teak Lee had already won the WhatsOnStage award for Best Actress in a Musical but since then she’s also been handed the Olivier and in, in all honesty, it’s impossible to quibble. Her Juliet is the real deal: an authentic star performance, with killer vocals, a wicked sense of fun and a tangible warmth, she’s utterly fabulous. It’s watching a diva just before she goes supernova.

The beating heart of the show though is Cassidy Janson as Anne, Shakespeare’s increasingly infuriated and disaffected spouse (“there’ll never be another Anne Hathaway”). Already multi-layered when the show opened, she has now acquired a greater lightness of touch, and an emotional urgency that proves deeply affecting. Her tear-stained rendition of Celine Dion’s ‘That’s The Way It Is’ is the stuff of memories, vocally enthralling and emotioally devastating. Oliver Tompsett’s cocky but charming Shakespeare is the perfect foil.

Melanie La Barrie’s adorable Nurse also challenges the tear ducts with a roof raising version of Pink’s ‘Perfect’. Prior to that she is a comic joy…her rapport with David Bedella’s hilarious nobleman is utterly glorious. Their post-coital sass-ation of Katy Perry’s ‘Teenage Dream’ is one of the happiest things currently on any London stage.

Jordan Luke Gage remains heroically vacuous and vocally exhilarating as the Romeo we never knew we needed: wait til you see his entrance at the end of act one…it’s pure showbiz meets rock excess. Tim Mahendran is as haunting as he is funny and cute as Bedella’s conflicted son, a sort of anti-Romeo trying to constantly to do the right thing even to his own detriment, and fields a truly exhilarating voice. Alex Thomas-Smith is just beautiful as his love interest May. If I missed the majesty and bruised emotionalism of Arun Blair-Mangat, the role’s originator, I loved the sensitivity and authenticity Thomas-Smith brings. This is a terrific cast.

In short, when the term “a great night out” is bandied about, & Juliet is exactly what people are talking about: a thunderously exciting songbook tethered to a delightful script with a resource of tangible talent that’s almost an embarrassment of riches. I’m already planning my next visit and I hope to see you there.