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Posts Tagged ‘Menier Chocolate Factory’

Marjorie Prime

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , on March 16, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Jordan Harrison is another American playwright who’s never been on my radar, or indeed the UK’s radar it seems, despite having written 15 plays in 15 years. This 2014 work was his 13th, made into a film in 2017. It’s set 25 years into the future, but you wouldn’t call it SciFi, futuristic perhaps, though it’s prophesies may indeed come true sooner.

Marjorie is an eighty-something with dementia. Her daughter Tess and her husband Jon arrange for a ‘prime’, an AI companion with whom she can reminisce over episodes in her life they can teach him. He’s modelled on Walter, her deceased husband, at a much younger age. Her relationship with her daughter is brittle, but better with her son-in-law. When Marjorie dies, Tess gets her own prime, of her mother, but more to exorcise their troubled relationship than to relive happy times. The cycle continues when Tess passes away and Jon has his prime of her.

It’s the sort of play that occupies your thoughts more after it’s over than during. I felt I was looking at a version of the future, albeit only one, that I’m personally unlikely to experience. Nonetheless it has a plausibility about it which I found thought-provoking and more than a bit unsettling, even disturbing. It packs rather a lot into 75 minutes, slowly, delicately. Dominic Dromgoole’s production, on Jonathan Fensom’s handsome set, is gentle and brooding, making you feel like you’re peeping into the future in a clandestine, privileged way. All four performances – Anne Reid, Nancy Carroll, Tony Jayawardena and Richard Fleeshman – are pitch perfect, as subtle and nuanced as the material.

Some may find it too slow, I found it rewardingly cerebral.

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The Sex Party

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Terry Johnson is the playwright who gave us gems like Insignificance, Hysteria & Dead Funny, and another 11 that I’ve seen. He often pays homage to comedians (Cleo Camping Emmanuelle & Dick at the NT, his tribute to the Carry On films, was another gem, as was his recent biographical piece about Ken Campbell) and sex crops up more than occasionally. He’s also a director of others’ works as well as his own. Here he is again both writer and director, which on this occasion may not have been wise.

The sex party is taking place in Alex’s house in Islington. He’s invited three couples and one single to join him and his young partner Hetty. Some he knows well, some he hardly knows, but they are all up for it, well, to one degree or another.There’s very old friend Gilly and her alpha male husband of sixteen years Jake (both new to this scene), ageing hippy Tim and his assertive wife Camilla and American ‘businessman’ Jeff and his wild Russian wife Magdalena. They’re all in the kitchen, except when sex is involved in the offstage living room. It’s too much for some participants and not enough for others. Just before the interval Lucy, a late guest, arrives. After some speculation and discussion, it’s determined she is a pre-op trans woman. In the second half she becomes the centre of attention as prejudices are revealed, people feel threatened and attitudes challenged and transform in what is a provocative change of direction by the play.

What starts as a somewhat dated sex comedy with contemporary frankness turns into a very contemporary debate about gender where the characters are initially more cautious, though it proves impossible for any of them to walk on eggshells for long. This half was certainly better, but there was so much going on it moved on from one issue to the next before the discussion had run its course, and became a bit loose and somewhat melodramatic. Some of the characters suffered by being little more than stereotypes – Tim and Magdalena – whilst others had more depth. Hetty’s Welsh accent was all over the place, with references to her mam becoming mum inconsistent. Good performances generally though, particularly from Pooya Mohseni as Lucy, who commanded everyone’s attention. I’ve only seen Lisa Dwan (Gilly) in Samuel Beckett so I’ve only really seen her mouth, face, head or torso before! She also has great presence. Tim Shortall’s kitchen is uber realistic, though my full price seat restricted my view of the right of the stage, something I should have been told and something dismissed out of hand by the theatre’s AD David Brabani. So much for 18 years of loyalty and supporter membership.

I felt the writing needed more work, and the second opinion of an independent director might have helped. Far from Johnson’s best work, but not as bad as the reviews would have you believe.

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Habeas Corpus

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , on December 15, 2021| 2 Comments »

This early Alan Bennett play, 48 years old now, is rarely seen. I can only recall one London revival, by Sam Mendes at the Donmar twenty-five years ago, which I missed because the performance I’d booked was cancelled and I couldn’t make another, so it’s been a long wait, not just the eighteen month lockdown one.

It’s his most farcical play, which seems to me to be a send up of the form, without slamming doors, but with the trouser dropping. It’s more Joe Orton than Brian Rix, both of which pre-date it. It also has more than a touch of absurdism, and is partly in verse. A very odd concoction which I’m not sure has stood the test of time.

Dr Arthur Wicksteed is a GP with a roving eye. His son Dennis is desperate to lose his virginity and his sister Constance wants false breasts to bag her a better man than the Canon, her fiancee. His wife’s ex flame is Sir Percy Shorter, the President of the BMA, who’s here in their home town of Hove for a conference. Lady Rumpers and her daughter Felicity, back from their colonial adventures, turn up, though it’s a long time before you realise why. Add in the false breast salesman / fitter, a suicidal patient and the Wicksteed’s housekeeper Mrs Swabb, our ‘narrator’ – a brilliant performance from Ria Jones – shake & stir and you have a surreal take on the classic British farce of that time.

It’s all very well plotted and littered with good jokes. There’s a coffin centre stage, the purpose of which remains unclear, otherwise there are no props, so it zips along. The costumes are pitch perfect 70’s, and of course the soundtrack is to die for. Underneath all this there may be some messages, but if there are they get lost in the form. You can’t fault the performers, who make the best of every line and every situation, but it didn’t really work for me.

It’s a curiosity, and as a big Bennett fan I’m glad I went to see what he was up to in early career, but it’s easy to see why its taken 25 years to reappear on a London stage again.

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Indecent

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , on September 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »

This extraordinary play by Paula Vogel is given an even more extraordinary production by Rebecca Taichman. What begins as the story of the life of a controversial early 20th Century play ends up being much more of a history of a culture and a people.

The ‘lost’ play at its centre is God of Vengeance by Sholem Asch, written in Warsaw at the beginning of the last century. It had its first reading in 1907 and despite the negative reaction from the godfather of Yiddish literature, gets produced in St Petersburg and across Europe. The controversy comes from the fact its central characters are a lesbian couple and it’s partly set in a brothel.

Fifteen years on from that reading, the play is translated into English and gets produced in New York, though by the time it gets to Broadway it has been cut. Despite this the cast and producer are arrested during a performance and prosecuted for obscenity, though this is eventually overturned. The next time we see the play is in performance in the Lod ghetto in Poland during the Second World War.

That’s one of the clever things about Indecent. In addition to the story of the life of God of Vengeance, it seems to be the story of a people and a culture too, aided here by an onstage Klezmer band and Jewish clothing, traditions & references, which clearly meant more to those in the audience of shared heritage, but placed the play in context nonetheless.

The staging is masterly, from the first coup d’theatre, as the actors are introduced, shaking off the dust, to the final one, where we get to see the most controversial scene of God of Vengeance at last. It would be invidious to single out any one of its exceptional cast of ten actors and musicians; for once the term fine ensemble seems spot on.

Great to be back in the Menier, to see something which is well worth the wait

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A Number

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »

This is the fourth Caryl Churchill play I’ve seen in the last twelve months – three revivals (two of which I’d seen before) and one new play(s). I first saw this seventeen years ago at the Royal Court with Michael Gambon and Daniel Craig. Cloning was a hot topic at the time. Eight years later there was a certain frisson seeing a real father and son – Timothy & Sam West – playing it at the Menier, something that was tried again at the Young Vic in 2015 with John & Rex Shrapnel. So this is my third exposure and I’m still confused. That’s Caryl Churchill for you.

It’s set in the home of Salter, where he is visited by someone who turns out to be a clone of his son, who was sent to some sort of home by his father when he was struggling after the suicide of his wife. Salter realises the doctors have created more than one clone and is preoccupied with suing them. His actual son then visits, furious with his father about the cloning. Salter now says he was just trying to have a second chance to bring up a son properly. The first clone returns, knowing the truth, now hating Salter. After another visit from his real son, now very troubled, Salter invites another of the clones, Michael, who proves to be very normal and unfazed by it all.

Polly Findlay’s excellent staging plays out in five scenes over sixty minutes, superbly performed by Colin Morgan as all of the boys and Roger Allam as Salter. In Lizzie Clachan’s clever set we’re in the same room, but from a different perspective in each scene, miraculously transforming in the darkness between them. It’s a much more realistic setting than previous productions, and Morgan is much better at creating different personalities than his predecessors. The nature versus nurture debate is interesting, but I was left wanting to understand more about Salter and the doctor’s motivations, and the extent of and reasons for the cloning.

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The Best Theatre of 2019

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 31, 2019| 1 Comment »

One of the most positive things about 2019 was that more new plays and new musicals made my shortlist than revivals of either; new work appears to be thriving, theatre is alive.

BEST NEW PLAY

I struggled to chose one, so I’ve chosen four!

Laura Wade’s pirandellian The Watsons* at the Menier, clever and hilarious, The Doctor* at the Almeida, a tense and thrilling debate about medical ethics, How Not to Drown at the Traverse in Edinburgh, the deeply moving personal experience of one refugee and Jellyfish at the NT Dorfman, a funny and heart-warming love story, against all odds

There were another fifteen I could have chosen, including Downstate, Faith Hope & Charity and Secret River at the NT, The End of History and A Kind of People* at the Royal Court, The Son and Snowflake* at the Kiln, The Hunt at the Almeida, A German Life at the Bridge, After Edward at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Appropriate at the Donmar, A Very Peculiar Poison at the Old Vic and Shook at Southwark Playhouse. Our Lady of Kibeho at Stratford East was a candidate, though I saw it in Northampton. My other out of town contender was The Patient Gloria at the Traverse in Edinburgh. I started the year seeing Sweat at the Donmar, but I sneaked that into the 2018 list!

BEST REVIVAL

Death of a Salesman* at the Young Vic.

This was a decisive win, though my shortlist also included All My Sons and Present Laughter at the Old Vic, Master Harold & the Boys and Rutherford & Son at the NT Lyttleton, the promenade A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Bridge, Noises Off* at the Lyric Hammersmith and Little Baby Jesus at the Orange Tree.

BEST NEW MUSICAL

Shared between Come From Away* in the West End and Amelie* at the Watermill in Newbury, now at The Other Palace, with Dear Evan Hansen*, This Is My Family at the Minerva in Chichester and one-woman show Honest Amy* at the Pleasance in Edinburgh very close indeed.

Honourable mentions to & Juliet* in the West End, Ghost Quartet* at the new Boulevard, The Bridges of Madison County at the Menier, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Fiver at Southwark Playhouse, Operation Mincemeat* at The New Diorama and The Season in Northampton.

BEST MUSICAL REVIVAL

Another that has to be shared, between the Menier’s The Boy Friend* and The Mill at Sonning’s Singin’ in the Rain*

I also enjoyed Sweet Charity* at the Donmar, Blues in the Night at the Kiln, Falsettos at the Other Palace and The Hired Man at the Queens Hornchurch, and out-of-town visits to Assassins and Kiss Me Kate at the Watermill Newbury and Oklahoma in Chichester.

A vintage year, I’d say. It’s worth recording that 60% of my shortlist originated in subsidised theatres, underlining the importance of public funding of quality theatre. 20% took me out of London to places like Chichester, Newbury and Northampton, a vital part of the UK’s theatrical scene. Only two of these 48 shows originated in the West End, and they both came from Broadway. The regions, the fringe and arts funding are all crucial to making and maintaining the UK as the global leader it is.

The starred shows are either still running or transferring, so they can still be seen, though some close this week.

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The Boy Friend

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 4, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Oh, what a tonic. Sandy Wilson’s pastiche of the 1920’s, written in the 1950’s, sparkles in the 21st Century.

Set in a finishing school in Nice run by Madame Dubonnet, its the tale of Polly and her chums as they prepare for a ball, choosing their costumes, all looking for love. Polly falls for delivery boy Tony when he brings her costume to the school. It seems like a hopeless match, rich girl and poor boy, but they meet on the corniche and agree to go to the ball together as Pierette and Pierrot. Polly’s dad arrives to find that Madame Dubonnet is an old flame. Tony’s parents arrive and we find out he isn’t who he seems. At the ball no less than six couples become engaged.

It’s pure escapist fun with its tongue firmly in its cheek. Bill Deamer’s period choreography is simply fabulous, as light as air, totally uplifting. Paul Farnsworth’s design is gorgeous, particularly his costumes, which are beyond sumptuous in the Act Three ball – from where we were sitting in the front row, you could clearly see the astonishing craftsmanship. MD Simon Beck’s band sound fantastic. Director Matthew White has squeezed every ounce of humour out of this 66-year-old show and made it as fresh and funny as you could wish for. The smile never left my face for the duration.

It’s brilliantly cast, with Amara Okereke & Dylan Mason making a delightful young couple and Janine Dee & Robert Portal a charming older one. Tiffany Graves wows again as Hortense and both Adrian Edmondson & Issy Van Randwyck give great comic cameos, the former not exactly known for musicals. The casting is in fact faultless, and their joy becomes your joy.

An antidote for election blues, but it’s not the sort of production you can only see once, so I’ve already booked to go again as a tonic for my post-election blues.

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The Watsons

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »

This is based on one of two unfinished works by Jane Austen. Coincidentally, the TV adaptation of the other, Sanditon, is currently on our screens. There have been other attempts to complete The Watsons, though not as a play it seems. Laura Wade takes this as her starting point, but it goes way beyond that in a brilliant Pirandellian concoction.

As soon as you walk into the Menier the stage and the two actors on it scream Austen. Dad is in his sick bed, with his daughter Elizabeth looking on. We soon meet her sister, eighteen-year-old Emma, who has been living with her aunt since she was five, other sister Margaret and brother Robert and his wife. They are all rather preoccupied with getting the sisters married.

We move to a society ball where Lord Osborne takes a fancy to Emma, she takes a fancy to Mr Howard the clergyman and local gentleman Tom Musgrave takes a fancy to any woman in sight. Despite hardly engaging with her at the ball, Osborne visits Emma at home and surprises everyone by proposing. When he leaves, she discusses her intentions, at which point she is interrupted by a maid questioning her choice.

We soon realise this is Laura the writer who has had to intervene as her character appears to have taken over her story. From here, it’s meta theatre all the way as the characters mutiny and we discuss Austen’s intentions, enact the characters wishes and explore the process of writing in an anarchic, hilarious romp. Laura even takes a call from her producer David, who asks how the writing is going! It’s hugely entertaining, but you do delve into the mind of Austen, her period and the reasons why she may have abandoned the piece.

Sam West has staged it expertly and Ben Stones has created an authentic period design. It’s a big cast for a play and they seem to be having a ball. Grace Molony is lovely as Emma and Louise Ford delightful as Laura the writer. In a uniformly excellent supporting ensemble, Joe Bannister is superb as the timid Osborne, Jane Booker superb as his officious mother, Sophie Duval a treat as bossy Mrs Robert and there’s a very assured performance from Isaac Forward as the ten-year-old Charles.

A real fun evening. Don’t miss.

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The Bridges of Madison County

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »

This musical is based on the 1992 debut novel of American writer Robert James Waller. It sold 60 million copies and became one of bestselling books of the 20th Century. He probably couldn’t believe his luck. Clint Eastwood made it into a film three years later, starring himself and Meryl Streep. Jason Robert Brown’s musical adaptation got to Broadway nine years later, and now has its UK premiere at the Menier Chocolate Factory, for which it has received the whole gamut of stars, from five to one; marmite indeed.

The story revolves around Francesca, who left Naples at the end of the Second World War, following American GI Bud Johnson to the US. In the brilliant opening number she tells us her story from wartime loss of boyfriend Paolo, the sea journey to New York and train across the US to her new life in Winterset, Iowa where she becomes a farmer’s wife, bringing up two children. When we join her there, the family head off to the State Fair in Springfield Illinois, where daughter Carolyn is showing her prize steer. While they’re away she meets and falls for National Geographic photographer Robert Kincaid, who’s in town to take pictures of those bridges of the title. It’s a sort of mid-west Brief Encounter!

Jon Bausor’s brilliant design seems to enlarge the Menier space, with three huge barn like doors, onto which images are projected, and two revolves moving us from the main location of the family kitchen to the State Fair, a neighbouring home, the fields outside, one of those covered bridges and a truck on the road, though it’s sometimes a bit noisy, during as well as between scenes, with involuntary movements of furniture occasionally comic (oh, and they need to repair the fridge door!). That aside, it’s a truly evocative design matched by Trevor Nunn’s staging, which flows beautifully.

It seems to me that the different views on the show are probably driven by the score and your attitude to love stories. Well, I’m a sucker for the latter (yes, there were tears again) and I think the lush eclectic Americana score is gorgeous, an antidote to the bland formulaic pop of most contemporary musicals. The songs, and there are a lot of them, maybe a few too many, really do propel the story and develop the characters, keeping just the right side of sentimentality, well, until the very end. I liked the way many of the cast get a number that brings their character briefly to the fore, enabling them to showcase their talents, notably Shanay Holmes and Georgia Brown.

Francesca provides yet another career high for Jenna Russell, as a very different character which she inhabits with conviction and authenticity. She’s well matched by Edward Baker-Duly as Robert, the finest performance I’ve seen by this actor, with a Glenn Campbell like velvet voice which so suited the songs. Dale Rapley provides fine support as Bud and there’s a lovely cameo from Gillian Kirkpatrick as neighbour Marge and an auspicious professional stage debut by the appropriately named Maddison Bulleyment as Carolyn.

Well, I’m with the four star gang. A lovely show staged and performed to perfection. Go and make your own mind up

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Orpheus Descending

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Even though this isn’t a classic Tennessee Williams work, it’s the third major London revival in thirty years – Peter Hall’s with Vanessa Redgrave in 1988, Nicholas Hytner’s with Helen Mirren nineteen years ago, and now Tamara Harvey directing Hattie Morahan and Seth Numrich in a co-production by the Menier Chocolate Factory and Theatre Clwyd. It’s inspired by the Orpheus myth, but it’s an uneven play, with a dull first half and an action-packed second. It’s also not easy for modern audiences to swallow the racism, however authentic it is of the period. The production, though, is first class.

Lady is a southern belle of Sicilian descent. Her father, a street performer back home, came to the US and became a bootlegger in prohibition times. He was murdered when he crossed a line that was unacceptable to the white locals. After a relationship with David Cutere, who left her, Lady ends up marrying store owner Jabe Torrence. As the play begins, he returns from major surgery at the hospital in Memphis, but the prognosis isn’t good.

In comes drifter Valentine Xavier looking for work, and Lady employs him, the sexual chemistry obvious from the outset. The relationship develops whilst Jabe stays upstairs with his nurse and sisters, the locals gossip and David’s sister Carol, a persona non grata in this community, seeks to lure Val for herself. Other characters, including Jabe’s friends Pee Wee and Dog, Sheriff Talbott and his wife Vee and local gossips Beulah and Dolly, come and go and another, Uncle Pleasant, becomes a sort of narrator, who occasionally gives us TW’s stage directions.

The problem with the play is that the 75 minute first half is virtually all scene-setting, and plays out so slowly that it risks losing the audience. The second half is a complete contrast as Lady discovers more about her father’s murder, makes a confession of her own and Val, who just about every woman in the neighbourhood is now smitten by, is driven out of town by their men, as the play is propelled to its tragic conclusion.

With the audience on three sides and just the back of the shopfront as a backdrop and a few tables and chairs for props, the Menier space seems vast, and is used very well in this staging. The ensemble is uniformly outstanding, led by terrific performances from Hattie Morahan as Lady and Seth Numrich as Val, with great chemistry between them. Jemima Rooper is superb as Carol and Carol Royle makes much of the strange character of god-fearing Vee. The supporting roles are all well cast; I was particularly impressed by Catrin Aaron and Laura Jane Matthewson as gossips Beulah & Dolly.

Despite the play’s problems, the fine production and exceptional performances make it worth seeing again.

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