West End Reopenings

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Richmond Theatre - Prism ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐️

Terry Johnson has established himself as an excellent writer and director and having seen his wonderful play about theatre director Ken Campbell at the Bunker, I was excited to see the new tour of Prism his play about the extraordinary Cinematographer Jack Cardiff.  Cardiff was the cinematographer on Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948) and African Queen (1951) and we are reminded before the play starts of these three films in neat fore stage screens with black and white stills and clips from these films. He also worked with Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Munroe on The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). Johnson uses these memories to explore the later life of Jack Cardiff when he was suffering from dementia and cleverly both educates us on his achievements and explores the impact of dementia on his close family in a dramatic and poignant play.

The play is set in the garage of his home which his son has furnished to help stir memories to assist in writing his biography and the opening sequence brilliantly explains the evolution of the aspect ratios of films by using the electric garage door to show the shape while off stage he comments on the developments . The paintings on the wall and black and white images of the female film stars not only set the scene but also are used to explain the art of lighting and highlight his marital infidelity. Tim Shortfall the designer and Ian Galloway the video designer has created an extremely interesting and effective setting for the show and the shifts from reality to imagined scenes are cleverly executed.



The transformation from the garage into the film set of the African Queen is very clever and atmospheric.

At the centre of the play is Robert Lindsay as Jack who brilliantly brings to life the man and his struggle with memory loss, confusion and failing sight while making us aware of how clever he was on film sets in capturing and creating the Producers and Director vision on film. As Jack says, "Life is temporary, film is for ever". His struggle with the biography is summed up when he says, " reliving my life is doing my head in " and defends his past behaviour by "my job was to flatter women ". It is a phenomenal performance of great variation and touching moments that make us laugh and cry.

Tara Fitzgerald plays his wife Nicola, twenty years his junior, who in his confusion he mistakes for Katherine Hepburn and who says he "slept with film stars as a hobby". She is very convincing when she appears as Hepburn in his recollection of that African set with her clipped American drawl but regrets that "when I am not her, I am faceless". Her reaction towards the end of the play when she realises, he is losing his sight is extraordinary and heartfelt.


 Oliver Hembrough plays his son Mason anxiously trying to coax memories from his father to create the biography and desperately seeking recognition from his father and to emulate his father's success. He too doubles up effectively as Humphrey Bogart and Arthur Miller in the recollections.




He hires Lucy, played by Victoria Blunt as a carer to keep Jack company and to type up his memoirs who Jack describes as the " mistress of understatement". She is desperate to keep her job being nine months sober and trying to regain custody of her daughter. She loves the job as she " never knows who I am going to be " as Jack sees her as his past film stars.



The prism of the title is the devise used to split the colours in the early Technicolor cameras but also a clear metaphor for the distortion of memories by time and illness and when Jack holds it in his hand we can feel both his joy of the technology and his loss of faculties .



Director Terry Johnson brings all these elements together to present his play on stage in a compelling and moving two hours that deserves wider exposure and larger audiences to appreciate and Robert Lindsay once again compellingly demonstrates his skill as a stage performer.



There are still six venues in this tour until 30 November to catch this play. Don't miss it.


Nick Wayne

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐️

A Day in the Life of Joe Egg " Its relevant, funny, heart-warming and heart breaking all at the same time" ****

Peter Nichols’ extraordinary play “A day in the death of Joe Egg” was shocking and controversial when it first appeared in 1967. Indeed, as the programme notes show The Lord Chamberlains office required cuts to some of the more salacious lines although today it is the language around Joe’s impairments that jars the most showing how attitudes to physical disabilities have changed over the years. Even the Cerebral Palsy charity which challenges remaining negative attitudes changed its name from the language used in this play. However, this revival feels so relevant and worthwhile because it both highlights these changes and shines a sharp spotlight on the impact on all members of the family adjusting to living with disability.

The play remains set in the sixties although it is only the disability language and the use of the 1967 song “Dear Mr Fantasy” by the band Traffic playing on a vinyl record player which starts and finishes the show that root it in that period. The highly theatrical staging by designer Peter McKintosh reflects the unusual structure of the play. We are constantly reminded we are watching a show and the first scene is played on the forestage with set markings on the floor highly visible and the back of the box set flats in full view. When the set spins to reveal the family sitting room it could be in any middle-class home. Throughout, with a loud click and change of lighting, actors break the fourth wall to address and challenge the audience often in long wordy monologues.  The quality of the writing means we are amused, engaged and ultimately moved by these revelatory expressions of feelings.

It is the wonderful Toby Stephens, as the father Bri, who drives the story and who we first meet addressing an unruly class at his school in the opening scene. He conveys perfectly the sense of frustration he feels about his job, his marriage and his daughter, Jo and we see often his coping mechanism of using humour to deflect and hide behind. His relationship with his wife, Shelia, a delightfully understated Claire Skinner, is revealed when he returns home and we learn of her promiscuous past with a sense of guilt that it has given her and her obvious love and care from her daughter.


Storme Toolis plays the daughter Jo and movingly captures the physical impairments of the characters and touchingly gets to also speak out of character at the end of Act 1 again reminding us that this is a theatrical event but adding to its meaning and impact.

 


The play shows how others react to their situation in the second half when well-meaning Freddie (Clarence Smith) and his heartless wife Pam (Lucy Eaton) visit for an awkward but ill-judged intervention. As Freddie says, “I tend to raise my voice when I am helping people” and chilling talks of a “properly working child”.



When Bri’s mother arrives, the magnificent Patricia Hodge, bearing knitting and a strong west country accent the trouble really begins as it reveals the overbearing pressure, he has been bought up with that adds tension to his marriage.



This is a play that must be seen, and looks very strange on the page, but this production directed wonderfully by Simon Evans with a first-rate cast, makes it shine. Its relevant, funny, heart-warming and heart breaking all at the same time. It is a wonderful tribute to the late Peter Nichols and to all those families that have had to adapt and cope with similar situations.



Nick Wayne

The Son at Duke of York *****

Writer Florian Zeller, and his regular translator Christopher Hampton, have become a modern-day powerhouse amongst playwrights. Following the extraordinary “Height of the Storm” about grief and loss and the spell binding “The Father” about dementia they have taken another modern theme, mental health amongst teenagers and produced an utterly brilliant new play “The Son”. Transferring from the Kiln theatre into the West End with much of the same cast it is a totally absorbing and engaging one hundred and five minutes of exquisite drama.

This is more than a play about mental health issues. It is about the father and teenage son relationship that plays out every day across the country in so many homes and young Nicholas’s depression and suicidal thoughts heighten the tension and conflict that so many families experience in the those hormonally charged years in secondary school.  Zeller’s theatrical devise of scattering the stage with the debris of life which the characters by and large ignore is a telling metaphor for the signs that are present but sometimes missed in these situations by the bluster, anger and love that bubbles around these households.


The tone is set from the beginning with an empty stage surrounded by clear white panelled walls somewhere between a mental institution and a rather elegant household designed by Lizzie Clachan. Hanging over it is a large black bag waiting for its contents to be spilled across the stage and a stag’s head lays in the corner, a reminder that there is more than one father: son relationship at the heart of this play.  When Nicholas enters a few minutes before the start and begins writing on the wall the message is clear, here is a young man crying out for help but will those around him see the signs? He writes “Life is weighing me down…. All mixed up in my head”.

Laurie Kynaston is the seventeen-year-old Nicholas struggling to cope with the breakup of his parent’s marriage and torn between them as to where best to live. It is wonderfully nuanced performance as his parents cajole him to explain himself and dismiss his attitude as “Ever seen a teenager radiate happiness?” But as he sinks further, he subtly portrays the cries for help turning to lies of cover up and we all feel the need to help him, hug him and support him. Opposite him is John Light magnificent as Pierre the work obsessed father who has deserted his son for another woman. His love and concern spills into anger but there are lighter moments too as in the hilarious dad dancing sequence which feels like a turning point in their relationship.

The play seems to put most of the responsibility for his condition on the parents without explaining what the real trigger for it was and it is a weakness in the play that Nicholas’s schools seem to offer no duty of care to their pupil in the months covered by the play and that the medical staff seem rather laid back over the right course of action. I would hope that in real life these two professional authorities might offer more guidance and support but here they dramatically contribute to the shocking, if perhaps inevitable, final scenes.

The female characters of the mother, Anne (Amanda Abbington) and the second wife, Sofia (Amaka Okafor) play secondary roles in the drama as passive bystanders to the torment the father and son are suffering. Hisstep mother does contribute to the turmoil when she foolishly says to him “Good advice; if you want to go on having a life – don’t have a child!” The Doctor is played by Martin Turner with a cool detachment. This keeps the focus on Pierre and his son Nicholas and Director Michael Longhurst gets the very best from these two fine actors.



I suspect that the underlying story is sadly very common but thankfully only occasionally develops into the scale of crisis portrayed but Zeller by shining a light on the issue in such a brilliant way may help us all spot the signs and seek the help needed to prevent these escalations. This is a play that fully deserves all the accolades that it will surely collect.

When I first saw Peter Shaffer's Equus in the West End at the Albery Theatre in 1976 it felt a powerful and ground-breaking production. It’s shocking and graphic tale of a psychiatrist’s exorcism of Alan, a young seventeen old, whose violent act of blinding six horses he groomed provides a relevant examination of mental health issues and how society deals with them. Yet this revival feels rather dry and laboured at times by comparison with the original. 

Some of the scenes remain theatrical tour de forces as Martin explores the motivation and causes of his patient's actions. When we first meet Alan, he is with his favourite horse Nugget, played by Ira Mandela Siobhan who without the aid of costume brilliantly creates the animal on stage through movement, breathing and muscle flexing. It is extraordinary when we see Alan's first encounter with a horse on the beach or riding the horse on a midnight escapade how these transformations into the creatures are achieved. War Horse used puppetry and the original Equus wire framed heads but here it just magnificent performances.

The production is simply set by Georgia Lowe within a three-sided silk curtains arena that shimmer in the lights and bellow in the breeze. It leaves the lighting designed by Jessica Hung Han Yun to create the dramatic changing environment and the effect is wonderful with blue and red washes and flashes of projection. At other times the simplicity is taken too far, a Hoover denotes Alan's parents’ home, a trampoline his cell, and a row of lights the cinema screen; while these may be memories or flashbacks it leaves too much to the imagination. 

Ethan Kai is excellent as Alan, a young boy seemly on the edge of madness chanting advertisement theme tunes and gradually building trust or being tricked into sharing his secrets with Martin (a solid performance from Zubin Varia who remains on stage through most of the show). Natalie Radmall-Quirke provides good support as Hesther, the magistrate who refers Alan to Martin and Norah Lopez Holden as the young temptress, Jill, who tips Alan over the edge. His parents, Doreene Blackstock and Robert Finch explain the concern any parent would feel as people suggest they are to blame but there is a clear implication that religious fervour and strained martial relationships are a contributory factor.

This is a powerful play despite often being quite wordy, but the shocking revelations, dramatic interactions with the horses and revealing insight into the boy's thoughts through the scenes with his psychiatrist is engaging and thought provoking and remains a modern classic.

Nick Wayne

Four stars

Night of the Iguana - "puts high production values on to the stage"

Night of Iguana is billed as Tennessee Williams last great play and arrives in the West End with a great looking cast for a short season. Written in 1961 and produced as a film with Richard Burton as the lush defrocked Anglican priest at the centre of the story it is not as compelling or bristling with sexual tension as his best known plays, Cat on a hot tin roof (1955) and Streetcar named desire (1947) which also were made memorable by films starring Richard Burton and Marlon Brando respectively . This one too follows a similar theme of a drunken unpleasant male abusing the female characters in a hot steamy location. Its writing feels dated, and the revival can't be justified on the basis of a modern classic but does provide a challenging vehicle for the actors especially those largely film actors treading the West End boards for a rare outing.

Indeed Anna Gunn as Maxine, the recently widowed vivacious proprietor of a rundown Mexican bed and breakfast hotel perched on a cliff side above the sea rises to this challenge in a very fine performance as she conveys her rampant sexuality, loneliness and hard-nosed reality with convincing style. Less successful is Clive Owen as the Reverend T Lawrence Shannon who seeks refuge from a coach load of women he is guiding around Mexico and a young girl he has slept with. Despite his best efforts he failed to convince of either his simmering sexuality or being on the edge of a breakdown by his over the top physical performance. In sharp contrast was the quiet authority of the wonderful Lia Williams as the penniless artist Hannah escorting her 97 year "oldest practicing poet on earth”, her grandfather Nonno (Julian Glover) although they looked more like father and daughter. 

The supporting cast was led by Finty Williams as Judith , the aggressively protective passenger threatening Shannon over the statutory rape of young Charlotte, Emma Canning but also includes a bizarre four German visitors celebrating the bombing of London which seemed only to provide weak jokes and locate the play in 1940. Their stereotypical appearances added little except to prolong the show towards three hours.

The magnificent set design by Rae Smith was immensely detailed and set the location with the huge cliff face upstage, the dilapidated rooms and bar in which the action takes place and the steps down to the sea and parked coach. When the storm breaks and Neil Austin's lighting design creates the lightening across the cliff face and rain it provides a powerful conclusion to the first Act. However, at other times when the pace lags the set also provides a distraction as your eyes wonder to some detail carefully set on stage. 

 This is a show that puts high production values on to the stage, but the isolated lonely broken people gathered together in this setting are neither attractive or sympathetic and it is only Hannah and Noono who we care about. It is hard to find anything interesting or relevant in its story today and leaves you wondering why revive this dated piece at this time and longing for the stage presence of a Burton or Brando.

Nick Wayne

Three stars

On Your Feet! Coliseum and UK tour ****

On Your Feet! Is a glorious celebration of the life and music of Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine who bought the incredibly rich Latin sounds from Cuba to America in the 1980’s and does what it says – gets you on your feet. Jerry Mitchell directs, and his long-term associate Sergio Trijllo does the choreography in energetic up-tempo routines to create a slick concert style tribute. It makes you smile; it makes you sway; it makes you tap your feet as the sound fills the vast Coliseum auditorium. The early scene in Cuba almost pays homage to the brilliant scene and music in Havana in the wonderful stage musical Guys and Dolls but the overall production does not hit these musical theatre heights. There is a slick stage design by David Rockwell which uses automation, sliding walls and some attractive projections by Darrel Maloney to set the scenes.

Despite a vibrant bright opening the first half feels long as the show traces Gloria and Emilio’s early life in Cuba, journeying to America and first meetings through to their first hits “Dr Beat” (1984) and “Conga” (1985) and they make the crossover from Spanish speaking Latin stars to English speaking hit makers. Some of the words get lost as the combination of Spanish accents and language and the amplified sound of the band overwhelm the head mics. However, it is the second half of the show that packs the emotional punch with the terrible coach crash on her long world tour in 1990, her long arduous recovery from back surgery and triumphant return for the American Music awards.

Though the biographical snippets don’t shy away from her fathers multiple sclerosis or the strains her ambition and injuries placed on her relationship with her mother and her husband Emilio the book does this in an affectionate and gentle way which must surely have reflected the  active involvement of the family in the production.

Ultimately this is a show about the music and with a ten-piece band on stage, backing singers and a strong colourful lighting set up by Kenneth Posner with the volume turned up the Miami sound transports us back to the eighties and the excitement and energy of this musical style. One of the early highlights is her mother, Gloria, (Madalena Alberto) singing the 1993 hit “Mi Tierra” an indication that she too might have been a star and perhaps explaining her reticence in supporting her daughters’ ambition.

Christie Prades who plays Gloria Estefan manages to show how her stage presence grows over the years to the excellent conclusion in “Coming out of the dark” and the Grand “Finale”. She looks the part but when Gloria herself comes on stage at the Gala opening, she brings an extra bit of magic to the stage that is hard to replicate. Emilio is played by George Ioannides and although we never feel the love that has kept them together for forty years of marriage, we see how he has driven and managed her career. There is also a delightfully scatty and charming cameo from Karen Mann as her grandmother Consuelo and a powerful and poignant performance from Elia Lo Tauro as her father Jose (a Vietnam veteran).

This is more than a Jukebox musical and has higher production values, a stronger emotional connection and a deeper vibrant sound than recent West End and regional touring productions like Club Tropicana and Rip it Up eighties. The Estefan’s created an original unique sound that has left an enduring legacy and this production will delight their strong fan base, but I hope also introduce a new audience to this loveable lady and her musical style and offer a party night out for groups all-round the country who simply want to go to the theatre to enjoy themselves.

Nick Wayne

Four stars

Harry Potter and Cursed child , 4th cast ****

Harry Potter, the books and the movies, are a global phenomenon and Sonia Freidman has already converted the franchise into a worldwide theatrical hit as well with productions in London, Broadway, Melbourne, San Francisco, and Hamburg already launched and more to follow. There is a well-oiled production machine that now turns out these shows, keeps them fresh and deals with the annual cast changes. In the West End at the Palace Theatre the fourth cast of 43 performers opened for the first two show day on Saturday May 24^th with just two left from the original cast and I can report that they are every bit as good as the earlier casts!

They have created a theatrical style that feels fresh and new, a two-part play (that must be seen together in sequence). It is a combination of spectacular magical illusion show, choreographed dance sequences and narrative description between characters, often in quiet long wordy speeches.  It depends heavily on knowing the back stories and having seen the films or read the books, but Potter super fans will not be disappointed seeing familiar scenes and characters live. The familiarity with stories means scenes can be created with a minimum of setting allowing the audience to fill in the missing details from their own memories.  The Dursley’s cupboard under the stairs, the hut where Hagrid finds Potter, the girls toilet washing fountain, the Hogwarts headmasters’ study, the forbidden forest, the Triwizard tournament and Godric’s Hollow are all created with a minimum of props.

What makes the show special is the extraordinary number of special effects which recreate the magical world in front of our eyes without the aid of cameras and CGI! The Polyjuice transformation, transfiguration, the Floo Network, flying broomsticks, magic wands that fire plumes of flames, the Ministry of Magic phone box, flying dementias and a patronus are all created to brilliant effect. They live long in the memory and set new standards for cast and crew in theatrical staging helped by an extraordinary Lighting Design by Neil Austin who creates the different environments through his lights and hides the magic trickery. There are tweaks to this latest production including a new Oswald’s old people home scene packed with silly magical tricks in a chaotic few minutes of collapsing props.

Writer Jack Thorne and Director John Tiffany weave all this together, takings JK Rowling’s original stories as a springboard background to tell a story about Father Son relationships. The story picks up twenty-two years after the final battle and defeat of Voldemort with the characters grown up with their own families. We see the strained relationship between Harry Potter (a deeply troubled Jamie Ballard) and his son Albus (a nervous withdrawn Dominic Short) and between Draco Malfoy (a very serious James Howard) and his son Scorpius (a wonderfully funny Jonathan Case in his second year). Indeed, it is Scorpius who often dominates the scenes with the best written characterisation of the show obviously not relying on or fitting in with our prior knowledge of the characters. All are sharply contrasted with Thomas Aldridge’s Ron, more a buffoon than ever as he is always desperate to get in on the action that has left him behind.

There are strong performances from some of the female characters too. Michaele Gayle is new to the cast as Hermione (in quite a departure from her previous roles as a pop singer and in Musical theatre and pantomime) and acquits herself well showing she is an accomplished actress. Lucy Mangan as Moaning Myrtle has a fun cameo role and Kathryn Meisle at Professor Umbridge is also excellent. Another character created for the Stage show is Delphi, Amos Diggory’s niece, played by Madeleine Walker.

This is five hours of theatre that deserves the multitude of awards it has collected although it feels like an hour of it has been included just to make it into 2 parts as there was too much for just one play. The time taken in part 1 to establish the next generation of wizards and then set up the main storyline means that the action at the heart of the story and the resolution gets delayed into Part 2. Nevertheless, it is a wonderful unique piece of Theatre, at times more like a Theme park stunt show, and is set to run and run here in London and all round the world.

Nick Wayne

Four stars

Glengarry Glen Ross UK tour

Richmond Theatre will soon celebrate its 120th anniversary and remains one of the most attractive playhouses in the country sitting on the edge of the lovely Richmond Green and on a sunny Easter weekend it looked wonderful. Disappointingly for a Saturday night the audience was only half full for this touring production of Glengarry Glen Ross, the 1983 play by David Mamet about American Realtors. It is a lavish looking production with two overly detailed sets and a strong cast, yet it fails to really engage the audience and feels rather dated and unattractive.

The first Act, a very long feeling 30 minutes, is set in a deserted Chinese restaurant in three unlinked scenes where there are no other customers or even a waiter to serve each pair of men meeting for a private chat. First up is Mark Benton as Shelly Levene, the old salesman on a run of poor sales meeting the office manager John Williamson (Scott Sparrow) and desperate to secure better leads to follow up on by corrupting the boss. 

Next, we meet David Moss (Denis Conway) trying to persuade George Aaronow (Wil Johnson) to stage an office break to steal the best leads. Finally, Ricky Roma (Nigel Harman) is seen trying to convince James Lingk (James Staddon) to sign a contract to buy a property. All are desperate to get on the "sales board" for top salesmen to win a car. The Act sets up the characters and the situation of the second act but is very word heavy, static and we don't care or like any of the characters. The language is full of dated attitudes, racist remarks and crude language. The basic structure of the act is poor, the direction adds to the weakness and the American accents too variable to be convincing.

In Act 2 we are in the Realtors office the day after the break in that has stolen contracts and leads and left the office in chaos with the police man interviewing all the staff. We can only marvel at the hard work of the stage management team in resetting the stage so dramatically in the twenty-minute interval! The action is brisker with a few twists, but it is only when there are three characters interacting does it come alive. However only Mark Benton conveys successfully the pathos, desperation and insecurity of their situations but even then, we don't care whether he is a successful salesman or a crooked worker.

This is play that won awards when it first appeared, but I could see no reason to revive it and despite the elaborate setting and good cast, it failed to live up to the anticipation and the wonderful setting of the theatre.

Nick Wayne

Two stars