Having spent 15 years publishing Rev. Stan’s Theatre blog on Typepad, I got the news the platform was closing down.
So this is Rev. Stan’s Theatre reborn on WordPress. It’s a continuation in content terms – reviews and interviews – but with a new URL and refreshed design.
If you are new to Rev. Stan’s Theatre blog then welcome. If you visited the orginal blog – welcome back.
This blog has always been a labour of love – I don’t get paid – so every click and comment means a great deal.
l-r Rowan Robinson (Franky) and Olivia Forrest (Charlene) in Heart Wall at Bush Theatre. Photo: Harry Elletson.
Heart Wall at the Bush Theatre starts as the audience arrives with a karaoke. Pub manager Valentine (Aaron Anthony) encourages people to come onto the stage to sing.
The auditorium is lively, some singing along to the popular anthems, waving arms, and I’m sure tapping toes.
As the popular pop songs fade, we meet Franky (Rowan Robinson), who has made a surprise return to her northern home from London. It’s her first visit in a year.
It quickly becomes evident that she and her parents have become skilled in deflection and avoiding certain topics.
There has been some sort of loss, and not just Franky’s pet rabbit, which has mysteriously disappeared.
Franky’s dad, Dez (Deka Walmsley), has a strange rash and takes scorching hot baths in the middle of the night. Is it a distraction or a punishment for some deep-rooted guilt?
Her mum, Linda (an excellent Sophie Stanton), avoids Dez by staying away from home, but Dez doesn’t seem overly alarmed.
And Franky seems to have swapped avoiding her parents for avoiding her new life in London.
Video transcript: A Doll’s House at the Almeida Theatre is a modern adaptation of Ibsen’s play.
First thing to say about that is, this is the second modern adaptation I’ve seen in a few weeks, the first one being Summerfolk at the National Theatre, and both playwrights have chosen to liberally sprinkle swear words.
Now I’m a swearer, I like a good swear, but I think in theatre, in plays, there has to be a reason for it.
Having characters randomly using the C word, I’m not sure how relevant that is. It doesn’t make it a modern adaptation.
I like the fact that the modern spin on the financial trouble that Nora is in is that she has basically moved some money around, got it done electronically, in order to help her husband out.
But there’s also an issue; she’s helping him out because he’s going into rehab for drug and alcohol [addiction], and yet she is buying alcohol and taking drugs in the house.
Richard Schiff, Damien Molony and Alex Kingston in Copenhagen, Hampstead Theatre. Photo: Marc Brenner
Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen is a philosophical, moral mystery set around a meeting between Danish physicist Niels Bohr (Richard Schiff), his wife, Margrethe (Alex Kingston) and German physicist Werner Heisenberg (Damien Molony) in 1941.
The two men had once worked closely together, but the war saw Germany invade and occupy Denmark, leaving the half-Jewish Bohr in a precarious position.
Heisenberg, who was involved in developing nuclear energy for the Nazis, made a surprise visit to Bohr in Copenhagen, but what was discussed remains a mystery. What is known is that the meeting was short and didn’t end on good terms.
Frahn’s play imagines versions of the conversation from different angles, with Margrethe sometimes acting as commentator.
Was the meeting about Heisenberg assuaging his conscience because of the work he was doing for the Nazis? Was he warning Bohr and, in doing so, undertaking a covert act of sabotage?
Knowing that Bohr had connections with the Allies, was he trying to find out about their nuclear weapon programme?
The play doesn’t shy away from acknowledging that no one actually knows what was said at this meeting, drawing a parallel to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.
A guide for small theatre production companies and fringe theatres doing their own marketing
I’ve been writing about theatre in London for 15 years* and I’m lucky enough to get sent press releases, invites and pitches of all shapes and sizes, but I wanted to share some tips for the small productions and venues doing their marketing with a low or no budget.
You’ll likely have a list of journalists and bloggers you want to target with promotional material and to invite to review.
Bloggers will receive a lot of press releases and invites. I count myself as small-scale in the reviewing world and still receive 20-30 emails and DMs a week.
Added to this, only a very few online reviewers do it as paid work. Most, like me, have full-time jobs and blog about theatre as a hobby and are therefore time poor.
Keep information clear and concise
This means clear communication with easy-to-find key information in emails is a huge help.
Where is your play/musical/show?
When is it?
How long is it?
What is it?
WHERE London has so many fringe theatres, so include an address for where your production is in your email so reviewers have the information to hand.
Side note: if you are a theatre, is the address easy to find on your website?
There are an alarming number of small theatre websites with this vital bit of info buried somewhere in a drop-down menu or page. Make it clear and obvious, eg, ‘Find us’ in the main menu.
Video review transcript (lightly edited for grammar): Les Liaisons Dangereuses – I never know how you pronounce that.
Dangerous Liaisons at the National Theatre, starring Aidan Turner and Lesley Manville, is superb. I’m just going to come straight out and say it.
The chemistry between the two leads is fantastic. There’s a delightful mixture of competitiveness and playfulness, but also respect and admiration between the two of them, which is just a delight to watch.
They use a lot of movement and a lot of dance, and this is really effective.
Who people are partnering with the style and tone of the movement, the absences from certain movement pieces and dance pieces all have their own story to tell, and really enhance the storytelling. And I really enjoy that.
The costumes are incredible, beautiful, beautiful costumes.
And the set, the Lyttelton stage is vast, and they use the space really well. They don’t have a lot of sets.
Amaia Naima Aguinaga in This Is Not About Me at the Soho Theatre
Plays with multimedia can feel a bit gimmicky and therefore disappointing, but this isn’t the case with This is Not About Me at the Soho Theatre.
Written by Hannah Caplan, it’s a two-hander about friends who have tipped over into ‘with benefits’ on three occasions, which threatens their friendship.
They are opposites who somehow fit together. Grace (Amaia Naima Aguinaga) is feisty and scattered, while Eli (Francis Nunnery) is solid and dependable.
To process their broken relationship, Grace decides to write a play about it.
But how much of what she writes is true, and should the truth get in the way of a good story?
Grace’s play and the truth knit and weave together, like the stage decoration. Also woven through are meta-references to playwriting and storytelling.
Multimedia elements are used judiciously, enhancing the story by bringing humour and depth. It perhaps also represents Grace exploring different performance styles for her play.
Mini mannequin-style puppets of Grace and Eli are filmed being manipulated by the human Grace and Eli as they have conversations.
Video transcript: The RSC has a new production of Henry V starring Alfred Enoch, who some of you may know from his days in Harry Potter
But, he’s done a lot of stage and screen work since then, so it feels slightly mean bringing up his child role.
It’s an interesting production. It blends nicely contemporary and modern elements. The costumes have a contemporary spin, which is very nice.
And the battles, rather than using traditional swords and fight sequences, use movement, and they’re really effective in showing the casualties of war.
And I really like that, particularly at the end of the play, it emphasises the human consequences of these tugs for power between the elite.
Video transcript: Summerfolk at the National Theatre is a big play. It’s got a huge cast. It’s also long, nearly three hours, including an interval.
It’s been adapted by Nina and Moses Raine. The language has been updated, but the costume and setting are still period. It’s plenty of wit and humour and bubbles of laughter throughout, which I enjoyed.
The language has been updated. It’s modern, and I found that a little bit jarring when characters are suddenly using swear words and talking very explicitly.
I’m not sure, the modern and the period actually gelled that well together.
The cast is also huge. That was problematic for me, because it’s very difficult, they have quite a lot of similar sounding names, and I found it quite difficult to follow who was who and who was being talked about.
And also, I didn’t feel you really got to know any of them in any great detail. So by the end of it, I’m just not sure I really care that much about these characters.
Bryonie Pritchard (L) and Jilly Bond (R) in The Dawn of Reckoning, White Bear Theatre. Photo: Rob Cheatley.
Two friends to enemies meet in a hotel bar in the early hours. The years have passed since something happened to shatter their relationship, but emotions haven’t necessarily mellowed.
Mark Bastin’s play The Dawn of Reckoning is a two-hander which unravels the broken friendship between Ruth (Jilly Bond), a children’s book illustrator, and Helena (Bryonie Pritchard), a neurosurgeon.
They met and became friends at university, opposites in many ways but bonded by a sense of fun.
What came between these firm friends? Was it a man who, or was there more to it?
The compact hotel set puts the two women in close proximity, heightening the feeling of tension.
Compelling and nuanced performances from Jilly Bond and Bryonie Pritchard peel away the past to reveal something sore and raw beneath.
Yet while their relationship is certainly frosty, there is an underlying warmth, coupled with moments of tenderness, that paints a picture of how close they used to be.
Fox screams coming from outside the hotel, and flickering lights give the play a slightly awkward, gothic and surreal atmosphere. It creates a feeling that there is about to be a haunting reveal or revelation.
Video transcript: Arthur Miller’s play Broken Glass is one that doesn’t get staged very often, and usually, there are a couple of reasons for that.
It could be that it’s problematic, or it could be that it’s just overlooked. And I think it’s definitely the latter.
With this production at the Young Vic, it is set in America, but in the lead-up to the Second World War, and a woman has lost all feeling in her legs.
And the doctor can’t find any physical reason for this, so starts exploring the psychological reason behind it, which involves delving into her past, her life, and her relationship with her husband in particular.
And with a modern lens, it exposes the patriarchal structures that restricted women at that time. It also exposes the abuse of power.
