Mother Courage and Her Children. Review by Julia Pascal.
This is a brave production by Hannah Chissick as Brecht’s epic drama is meant for the large scale and, squeezing such a huge concept in to the Southwark Playhouse, takes guts.
theatre
Hal Cazalet: Play on Words, Crazy Coqs, Zedel, London. Review by Barbara Lewis.
To most Britons, P.G. Wodehouse is known as the creator of quaint, comic novels starring the blundering upper class twit Bertie Wooster and his astute valet Jeeves. He also contributed lyrics and stories to a wealth of musicals and his step great grandson, the opera singer Hal Cazalet, who as a child slept in a room beneath the Wodehouse archive, tells us he only got to know P.G. Wodehouse’s prose through the song lyrics.
Pop-Up Opera – Hansel and Gretel. Review by Julia Pascal.
Hansel and Gretel was originally written by The Brothers’ Grimm in 1912. It is a folk tale, showing how a brother and sister avoid being eaten alive by a witch in the gingerbread house. It is a tale that seems to foreshadow the Third Reich.
Wayne McGregor. Sadler’s Wells. “Autobiography”. Review by Primrose MacFay
Wayne McGregor is the choreographer of the moment, the brainiest bloke on the block. That this must be so is confirmed by the scale of the recognition he receives, as much from rapturous young audiences as from battle-hardened institutions.
Sherlock Holmes and the Crimson Cobbles, The Chipping Norton Theatre. Review by Barbara Lewis
In a post-factual world of discredited journalism and politicians who, more than ever, we do not believe, theatre with its direct emotional truth can provide a much-needed release.
Ink, Duke of York’s Theatre, London. Review by Barbara Lewis.
In the shocker “can-it-possibly-be-true?” atmosphere of tabloid journalism, this theatrical account of Murdoch’s acquisition of a moribund Sun newspaper and his appointment of the angry Albert “Larry” Lamb to bring it back to life tells us the notorious press baron’s grandfather was a minister in the Scottish church.
Aberpella ’50 Tones of Grey’, Edinburgh. Review by Barbara Lewis.
Four women and five men from Aberdeen University’s A Cappella Society Aberpella tell us they thought they were being terribly witty in choosing the title “50 Tones of Grey” as a reference to the shades of the sky and stone of their university city.
A Spoonful of Sherman, Zedel, London. Review by Barbara Lewis.
After studying literature and painting, Robert B. Sherman, the elder half of one of the world’s most prolific song-writing duos, set about writing the great American novel, while his younger brother Richard, who had studied music, was working on the great American symphony.
The Hired Man, Union Theatre, London. Review by Barbara Lewis.
In a capitalist society, we’re nearly all hired hands, but the extent of the exploitation is more or less pernicious. Melvyn Bragg’s gritty, Northern, sweeping tale ultimately finds the best option for the ordinary man is to accept a pittance to work above ground rather than to toil in a futile World War I trench or in a narrow coal seam beneath the sea.
The Island, Southwark Playhouse, London. Review by Barbara Lewis.
Art is at its most powerfully dramatic when it gives voice to the oppressed. By using the device of a play within a play to utmost effect, The Island communicates the oppression of a recent generation by drawing on tragic defiance from classical times.
Richard III, Arcola Theatre. Review by Barbara Lewis.
Richard III manages to be at once resounding royal propaganda and an unsettling reminder of the fragility of the status quo given Elizabeth I’s lack of an heir: the Tudors had rescued the kingdom from the murderous House of York, but they hadn’t secured the future for long.
Sleeping Beauty, The Theatre, Chipping Norton. Review by Barbara Lewis.
Low-tech, unforced and innocent, the Chipping Norton panto lives up to the programme note’s promise to provide “an escape from the disposable pop culture that surrounds our children”.