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  • Review: This Is Not About Me, Soho Theatre

    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.

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  • Video review: Henry V, Royal Shakespeare Theatre

    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.

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  • Video review: Summerfolk, National Theatre

    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.

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  • Review: The Dawn of Reckoning, White Bear Theatre

    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.

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  • Video review: Broken Glass, Young Vic Theatre

    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.

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  • Review: The Comfort Woman, Omnibus Theatre

    Minjeong Kim in The Comfort Woman, Omnibus Theatre. Photo: Abbie Sage

    The Comfort Woman at the Omnibus Theatre is the story of innocence violently ripped away and the fight for survival that ensues.

    Drawn from the real accounts of survivors, it centres on 13-year-old Minja, who lives in a small village.

    She plays with her friends and has a crush on an older boy, but one day she is lured away by a false promise of doing some honest paid work.

    Minjeong Kim plays Minja and all the other characters. Her expressive performance at times populates the stage so it doesn’t feel like a monologue.

    She beautifully captures the joy and bubbly innocence of Minja before her kidnapping. Her chastising mother, giggling friends and the cool swagger of the boy she has a crush on.

    Then come the men, the soldiers and medics and the fear, despair, stoicism and shame as her story unfolds alongside other girls who’ve similarly been kidnapped.

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  • Review: The Sound of Absence, Omnibus Theatre

    The Sound of Absence at the Omnibus Theatre is an introspective monologue about grief with piano accompaniment.

    Lenore (Yanina Hope) lives a long way from her father and arrives home too late to see him before he dies.

    Her relationship with her father was complex, something we discover through her recollections and stories, and the play explores how that, and time, shape her grief.

    It is an intimate performance, designed to draw us into Lenore’s world and feelings as she navigates denial, anger and regret.

    Her father, emotionally and later physically absent from much of life, becomes a surprising empty spot for Lenore.

    Vladyslav Kuznetsov’s piano performance is skilled and, at times, a haunting and atmospheric backdrop.

    However, it can also be a distraction. The music can be overbearing, intruding into the dialogue and sometimes drowning it out.

    The refrains are challengingly repetitive, something which is particularly noticeable in pauses where music fills in the ‘absence’ of dialogue.

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  • Review: After Miss Julie, Park Theatre

    Tom Varey and Liz Francis in After Miss Julie, Park Theatre

    There is a scene in After Miss Julie at the Park Theatre involving a pet bird, which had the audience gasping and some covering their mouths.

    It is a shocking moment in a play that exposes an uncomfortable conflict between the classes and genders.

    Writer Patrick Marber has taken Strindberg’s play Miss Julie and set it decades later, in 1945, after the war has ended and Labour has swept to victory in the election.

    A party is in full swing in an aristocrat’s house, but down in the kitchen, tired cook Christine (Charlene Boyd) and her unofficial fiancé, chauffeur/valet John (Tom Varey), have their work interrupted by the toff’s daughter Julie (Liz Francis).

    She’s recently been jilted and is in a flirtatious mood. Her mother, we learn, tested gender boundaries and like her, Julie feels the repression of her sex by the patriarchy and, fueled by drink, fights against it.

    Working-class John is well-read and has travelled, and wants to do more with his life.

    Despite his relationship with Christine, he is receptive to Julie’s attention, spying an opportunity.

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  • Review: The Undying, Soho Theatre

    The Undying, Soho Theatre. Photo: Tobi Ejrele

    If you could age in reverse and go back to a younger age simply by taking a pill, would you? And would you do anything differently?

    This is the premise of Rea Dennhardt Patel’s play The Undying at the Soho Theatre.

    Amba (Vaishnavi Survaprakash) and Prav (Akaash Dev Shemar) are in their 90s and have been married since their early 20s. Amba buys a bottle of TwiceLife™ pills, which will halve their age, but Prav is initially reluctant.

    They both have different ideas about what life should be like with a second chance at youth, and cope in different ways. How far back do you have to go and to what lengths, to be at peace with yourself?

    The acting was strong throughout, supported by a solid script which is sprinkled with wit and irony. A live music accompaniment adds to the story.

    Simply and imaginatively staged with a few pieces of lounge furniture and a backdrop of screens on which words describe key moments in Amba and Prav’s life.

    These are used as an effective tool to indicate where the couple is in their life timeline and are one of the few parameters given for the TwiceLife™ concept.

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  • Review: Man and Boy, National Theatre

    Video transcript and additional thoughts below: “Man and Boy at the National Theatre is a Terrence Rattigan play. It is set in New York during the crash of the 1920s/1930s, and it centres on a father and son.

    The father, Gregor, played by Ben Daniels, is a millionaire who is trying to save a deal that will save his empire, and he flees to the apartment of his estranged son, played by Laurie Kynaston.

    And so there are two dynamics going on, because there is the saving of the deal, trying to save the financial empire, but also that relationship between father and son. What caused this estrangement and how do they navigate that?

    Ben Daniels as Gregor is absolutely superb.

    He is a delicious mix. He is the master manipulator in getting people to do what he wants them to do, but he does it with so much charm and charisma. He’s a joy to watch.

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