Category Archives: 2016

2016 Round-up – partial and prejudiced.

 

© Annabel Vere

© Annabel Vere, Ragtime company, Charing Cross Theatre

RECALLING the year past which is de rigueur for those of us who have spent too many nights in darkened rooms, I’m struck again by the richness and talent of so many shows I’ve seen, particularly in the smaller and off-West End and Fringe venues.

Vive la Fringe. With the demise of the repertory system, it is the fringe and alternative theatre that has stealthily and often in unrecognised ways provided the apprenticeship and forcing house in recent years for all that is best in our theatrical, cinematic and televisual life.

We take it so for granted, the unstinting hours, the passion, the labours of love, for little remunerative reward, that forms our cultural backbone.

© Marilyn Kingwill, Emily Houghton, Samantha Pearl and Grace Andrews

© Marilyn Kingwill, Emily Houghton, Samantha Pearl and Grace Andrews, Tomorrow I Was Always A Lion (Arcola); British company, Belarus Free Theatre director Vladimir Shcherban

So at the end of 2016, I’d like to pay tribute to all those unsung actors and backstage staff who never get the accolades, the rehearsal directors, the understudies, the stage managers and most of all the esprit de corps. How many productions have I seen this year and in recent years where the ballast and spring of a production has been supplied and kept steady by the ensemble and the chorus.

Here in no particular order are some of the productions and their stellar ensembles who have stirred, enthralled or provoked me. I thank them, each and every one for making my life that much richer for having seen them.

I should add that partial as I am to new work, this list is restricted to new plays only I’ve seen this year. Apologies for non-mention of the many excellent revivals (excepting Ragtime, my Musical of the year and Yael Farber for her dynamic revival of the great Lorraine Hansberry’s prescient, extraordinary Les Blancs at the National, my Best Director of the year ). I’m sure they’ll be covered elsewhere…

© Manuel Harlan, Fiston Barek (Dembe), Joe (Sule Rimi) , Faith Alabi (Naome), Jo Martin (Mama), Faith Omole (Wummie) in Chris Urch's The Rolling Stone

© Manuel Harlan, Fiston Barek (Dembe), Joe (Sule Rimi) , Faith Alabi (Naome), Jo Martin (Mama), Faith Omole (Wummie) in Chris Urch’s The Rolling Stone

Chris Urch’s The Rolling Stone at the Orange Tree
Anna Jordan’s Yen at the Royal Court
Owen Sheer’s Pink Mist at the Bush, up from Bristol
Stuart Slade’s BU21 at Theatre503
Leo Butler’s Boy at the Almeida
Rose Lewenstein’s Darknet at Southwark Playhouse
Nick Payne’s Elegy at the Donmar
James Graham’s Monster Raving Loony at Soho
Ayad Akhtar’s The Invisible Hand at the Tricycle
Mike Poulton’s wonderful Kenny Morgan at the Arcola
Mark Hayhurst’s equally fabulous First Light at Chichester
Neil McPherson’s Easy to be Dead at Finborough
Charlene James’s Cuttin It at the Royal Court
Owen McAfferty’s Unfaithful at Found111
Nathaniel Martello-Wright’s Torn at the Royal Court
David Greig’s The Kid the Arcola
Ella Hickson’s Oil at the Almeida
Elinor Cook’s Pilgrims at The Yard
Isango Ensemble from South Africa in A Man of Good Hope at the Young Vic
Mongiwekhaya’s I See You, another South African piece at the Royal Court

© Manuel Harlan, the company in Andrew Bovell’s Things I Know to be True, Frantic Assembly

+ Frantic Assembly’s Things I Know To Be True by Andrew Bovell at Lyric Hammersmith and touring

Belarus Free Theatre twice over: Burning Doors at Soho and later in the year at the Arcola, Tomorrow I Was Always A Lion, based on Arnhild Lauveng’s memoir

Finally, and not forgetting Katie Mitchell’s superlative Forbidden Zone at the Barbican, co-production with Berlin’s Schaubühne.

Thank you all.

31/12/2016

Review published on this website, Dec 31, 2016

 

 

 

The Red Shoes

Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London (*****)

© Johan Persson, Ashley Shaw (Victoria Page)

© Johan Persson, Ashley Shaw (Victoria Page)

Well, he’s done it again. Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes, based on the iconic movie by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger is a triumph, whichever way you look at it. Scenic-wise, music wise and not least as a gripping story, from first to last you know you are in the hands of someone who loves and has complete mastery over the technical and dramatic qualities of theatre. Continue reading

A Christmas Carol

The Vaults Theatre, London (***)

© Geraint Lewis, (from left, in background): Samuel Collings, William Findley, (front), Alix Dunmore (centre), Dorothea Myer-Bennett

© Geraint Lewis, (from left, in background): Samuel Collings, William Findley, (front), Alix Dunmore (centre), Dorothea Myer-Bennett

Turning Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol into a mock radio recording is, in a sense, returning Dickens to his roots. Dickens public readings of his work are legendary. So here we are, in the Vault Theatre under the thundering trains of Waterloo, with the Fitzrovia Radio Hour, who, formed eight years ago have made staging radio plays their speciality. Continue reading

Hamlet

Trafalgar Studios, London (****)

© Robert Workman, the remarkable Mark Arends as a fiercely tormented Hamlet

© Robert Workman, the remarkable Mark Arends as a fiercely tormented Hamlet

When it comes to radical rethinks of Shakespeare, sometimes you find it in the most unexpected places. Kelly Hunter’s Hamlet is one that hammers on the eyelids. Ferocious and deeply moving, it harbours an incendiary central performance from Mark Arends that at times makes you fear for his life, so emotionally tethered is it to its character’s nerve endings. Continue reading

Once in a Lifetime

Young Vic Theatre, London (***)

© Johan Persson, Kevin Bishop (Jerry Hyland), Claudie Blakley (May Daniels), Lizzy Connolly (Susan Walker) - `lights, action...'

© Johan Persson, Kevin Bishop (Jerry Hyland), Claudie Blakley (May Daniels), Lizzy Connolly (Susan Walker), Buffy Davis (Mrs Walkder) – `lights, action…’

The birth pangs of Hollywood. Everyone wants a piece of the action and Moss Hart and George Kaufman’s Once in a Lifetime, opening in 1930, caught the mad, irrepressible flavour of what was to become a major influence in the shaping of western 20th century culture. Continue reading

This House

Garrick Theatre, London (****)

© Johan Persson, Steffan Rhodri, Labour Whip, Walter Harrison and Tory opposite number, Nathaniel Parker as Jack Weatherill

© Johan Persson, Steffan Rhodri, Labour Whip, Walter Harrison and Tory opposite number, Nathaniel Parker as Jack Weatherill

James Graham is turning into one of our most treasured stage political commentators. Having first emerged ten years ago with the small but perfectly formed (and award winning) Eden’s Empire at the Finborough, This House, which has taken on a life of its own since its first appearance at the National Theatre in 2012 in the Cottesloe Theatre is on a far grander scale. Continue reading