Reviews Written by J

Romeo and Juliet (perhaps boringly) is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays, so to be invited to see another take on the classic was a pleasure. The show, currently at the Greenwich theatre, features live music and frames Romeo and Juliet as a same-sex/lesbian relationship. When I arrive, I ask if I am allowed a cast sheet, for which I am given a dirty look and told they are “for press”. Clearly, Instagram micro-influencers, (perhaps fairly) are excluded from this category. In their infinite mercy, I am given one anyway. My promised complimentary drink did not exactly materialise in any conventional sense either… no matter.  This production features an impressive, traditional looking set of castle-wall-like structures. Joni Mitchell plays in the background before the show starts, presumably trying to set a singer/songwriter mood. The show features "double up" casting, with actors playing multiple parts. The only exception are the title roles, which receive a designated a...

Equal parts funny and heartbreaking, Succulent Theatre have devised a unique offering in the form of their play Funeral Teeth. Funeral teeth plays three nights at the Drayton Arms Theatre as part of a nationwide tour.   I have now visited a number of pub theatres, and the Drayton Arms is the nicest so far. The building facade is beautiful, and the bar is very well kept. After heading upstairs, I was greeted by some delightful cast members, one of whom offers prospective theatre goers a cornucopia of essentials. Sweets, tissues, tampons, and condoms all on offer; other theatre companies take note. Before we even start, the cast fold the audience into their "in-group", allowing a shared sense of trust. They create a convivial, community feeling, with strangers being treated indistinctly from the friends and family in for opening night. Even down to something like the way in which the "trigger warnings" were announced at the start felt right.  The show itself is deep, ...

The Fastest Clock in the Universe is a play by Phillip Ridley, whose work I have developed a recent fondness for. First performed in 1992, the play is revived by director Brittany Rex at the New Wimbledon Theatre's "Studio" space. As you first enter the theatre there is a kind of grotty, dinginess to the place. The herbal cigarette smoke in the air adds to the atmosphere. That cigarette scent followed me home on my clothes, just as the play's themes lingered with me too. The Fastest Clock in the Universe centres on Cougar Glass, who is obsessed with looking beautiful and staying youthful. Aging is clearly a sore subject for Cougar; he mentally spirals with any reference to his real age. We get the impression he is much older than he looks. Frederick Russell excels in this lead role as the horrible hypersexual, Cougar, becoming a swinging pendulum of emotions. In the second act, it seems he barely gets a word of dialogue, but the physical acting on...

This was my first time at The New Diorama Theatre for this production, an award winning venue. The New Diorama is at the cutting edge of British theatre. It has demonstrated its ability to spot and nurture rising talent: both For Black Boys... and Operation Mincemeat started their lives out at The New Diorama prior to their great acclaim.  The Uncontainable Nausea of Alec Baldwin comes from theatre company TG Works, a migrant-led, experimental theatre company founded by Tommaso Giacomin and Manuela Pierri. The Uncontainable Nausea has played at The Venice Biennale, and as part of Voila! Festival, before working its way here to The New Diorama.  The play opens with the main character, Alec Baldwin (not the same), in conversation with an AI chat bot. T his juxtaposition presents a pensive, tense Alec, and a machine trying its best to relate. The result is a moving and surprisingly hilarious exchange, with the AI fumbling its way through normal conversation. Perhaps the best exam...

Edith Nesbit's The Railway Children is a story that should need little introduction. The delightful, yet emotional, children's story follows youngsters Roberta, Peter and Phyllis following the arrest of their father. Mark Anthony Turnage and librettist Rachel Hewer have adapted the tale into an exciting new opera.   I must admit, I have no particular fondness for the instrumental compositions I heard previously from Turnage. But clearly he has a gift for opera (this being the composer behind the Olivier award-winning Festen). The Railway Children features a small ensemble and is semi-staged, but punches well above its weight. The video design is broadly insignificant, but clearly picks up the slack where a more ambitious set design would have otherwise immersed and provided greater understanding. A slight oversight in my opinion: no surtitles. Even with the quality projection of vocalists I could not quite make out all the words from near the back of th...

An abstracted amalgam of comedy, sex and biological disgust, Tuck! (directed by Lou Bristow-Bell) describes itself as a "boun dary-pushing psycho-dream" play. An apt epithet. On this occasion, Tuck!  takes residence in the Baron's Court Theatre, nestling itself under the black painted brick arches of the pub cellar venue - a suitably unsettling setting.  The cast of Tuck! is exemplary. Of particular note are Jack Heffran and Samantha Begeman, who manage to effortlessly recreate the awkward flirting of a couple - in this scene the dialogue shines too. The comic timing and ability to enthral an audience that the entire cast possesses has to be commended.  The play's disturbing moments include: the description of a group ritualistically sucking the blood out of a used tampon, a woman achieving orgasm through being told by how petite she is, and the question "are you wet?" answered not with words - but by reaching between their legs and discovering copious amo...