⭐⭐⭐

Dandini is usually a bit peripheral in pantomime versions of Cinderella. But if you have a dancer of the calibre of lithe Ian Waite (eight years as a Strictly Come Dancing pro) then it makes sense to focus on him as director Michael Howcroft does here. Every movement the willowy Waite makes is compelling watching. He is definitely the star of this show.

Also strong are Nicole Faraday as a cackling wicked stepmother, a larger than life baddie in scarlet velvet and Mark Jones as a Buttons with the right combination of cheeky-chappie stage presence and warm pathos.

Katie Pritchard as the Fairy Godmother and Mark Read as Prince Charming are both exceptionally fine singers and their sung numbers are high spots. Naomi Wilkinson’s Cinderella manages to push a little way past the weak put-upon stereotype and assert herself occasionally although my favourites in the role have, over the years, taken this angle much further.

Oliver Broad and Jake Snowdon as the ugly sisters feel a bit underused and understated although they’re effective when they dance together with incongruous nimbleness and they look terrific in their finale black and white (costume design by Eve Wilkinson).

An imaginative breadth of live music underpins this show. It ranges from ballet with elegant numbers choreographed by Danielle Drayton to modern pop numbers with a sprinkling of our old friend “Trad”. A three-piece band (MD Simon Goldring) does well in the pit and the woodwind work (Kevin Parker) is a real stand out.

The show is, however, let down by its lacklustre script. It isn’t funny enough. Written by James Tully and James Ellis, based on an original version by Nick George it limps along with too many tired old jokes and a lot of would-be comedy which too often falls flat.

⭐⭐⭐

The title tells it as it is – with a bit of hyperbole. In theory this show ought to be bitterly disjointed. You can’t make a successful, integrated two hours of theatre out of a series of twenty or so very short two-hander sketches can you? Well actually you can. In practice, Craig Taylor’s play(s), under Laura Keefe’s imaginative direction is/are pleasingly entertaining – original and faintly quirky.

Based on eavesdroppings and situational ideas these fragments are beautifully observed and that truthfulness is what makes the piece flow: from a pair of council employees litter picking in a North London park, to a mother and daughter in a Russell Square pub or a gay man in a Manchester hospital after a botched suicide whose visiting mother will discuss anything but his sexuality. Then are a couple of theatre cloakroom attendants nicking peppermints from coat pockets, an elderly lady with dementia being visited by a care assessor, a father in a park with a child who’s developed a fear of CTV cameras, two football fans and .. on it goes.

The linking device is two fold. First there’s a chatty voiceover who keeps dictating the situations like a theatre director settting improv tasks. That has the neat advantage of informing the audience exactly where we are and what’s happening. Second we’re inside a game of bingo and each time the situation changes a new number flashes up. To reinforce the point the audience are given bingo cards and invited to join in a quick game at the beginning of the second half.

Emma Barclay and Alec Nicholls are a talented, very convincing pair switching accents and persona of both sexes as they wriggle in and out of onion layers of simple costumes, grab props and shunt and pieces around Ceci Calf’s versatile set.

Playwright Craig Taylor is a Canadian who now lives in London. Having started writing short scenes inspired by observation in Canada he continued in Britain and eventually, ten years ago, published a book of 95 miniplays from which companies can pick and mix to create a coherent piece of their own – exactly what has happened here. Versions of A Million Tiny Plays About Britain have been performed all over the world.

It isn’t Hamlet or Medea obviously but there is a wide range of humanity in these plays. We all know the people Taylor depicts and that’s what holds the attention.

Alec Nicholls and Emma Barclay at Jermyn Street Theatre. Photo: Robert Workman

⭐⭐⭐⭐ (pro-am-youth)

They’re a bonkers bunch at Chickenshed – but in the nicest, most inclusive, diverse, imaginative way. Few directors would contemplate working with a cast of 800, most of them children but that’s what Lou Stein has done – again – in this show, each performance of which features one of four rotas of 200. I saw the Green Rota. And it isn’t until you see every single one of them on stage together at the end you realise what a massive undertaking this is.

Nobody at Chickenshed uses the word “disabled” so I won’t either. Suffice to say that there, in the glorious mix, are some young cast members who need help on stage. Moreover because everyone at Chickenshed learns BSL, the signing is shared among various performers and seamlessly integrated into this splendid show. It intrigued my plus one who’d never seen signing grafted in like this.

The plot is fabulous too. Imagine a feminist version based in the 1960s – cue for a glorious two hours of music studded with references, quotations and hints from composer/MD and his band of which we get an occasional glimpse on a high platform behind and above the stage.

A feisty Snow White (Cara McInanny – terrific jazz singing voice like dark chocolate) is having trouble with her shallow, vain, stepmother, Jane (Sarah Connolly) who throws a lot of pointless parties. Jealousy motivates Jane to pay her bodyguard, Jason (Nathaniel Leigertwood) to kill Snow White but, because there’s the beginning of a relationship between them he puts her on a train to the Scottish Highlands instead. There, Snow White meets a huge hippy (song and dance routines reminiscent of Hair or Godspell) community on a campsite at the heart of which is a group called the Magnificent Seven who invite her to stay with them. It’s an ingenious reworking which ends surprisingly happily with forgiveness and hope for the future. There’s even a rather neat framing device.

All this is played out on William Fricker’s magnificent set. With an aptly topical hint of Cecil Beaton in the 1964 My Fair Lady film, it consists of an elaborate archway of white shapes and a dramatic black and white chequerboard floor. At the centre is a flexible stair case which variously opens, separates and provides a quasi-balcony.

It is warmly uplifting to see so many children in such a fine show. But Chickenshed is like a family and the professional adults at the heart of this show are mostly people who have come up though Chickenshed’s classes groups and qualifications and remain connected with it – in some cases as staff members. It’s effective role modelling for young Chickenshed members.

And it’s moving when the plot of the show reflects what Chickenshed does in real life. The company’s slogan is ‘Theatre Changing Lives’. This Snow White is a child of the 1960s. She wants to change things for the better and she does.

First published by Sardines: http://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/reviews/review.php?REVIEW-Chickenshed-Snow%20White&reviewsID=3807

⭐⭐⭐

Venetia Twigg (who also plays Yelena) gives us Uncle Vanya pared down for 2019. With a 75 interval-less runtime, there’s a lot of emphasis on conservation issues, especially bees and bee-keeping, and this production invites us to think very carefully about all-too-topical medical health issues.

Five actors work on Valentina Turtur’s cellular set, inspired by a bee hive. Vanya (Matthew Houlihan) a widower, lives on a country farm with his niece Sonya (Foxey Hardman) who inherited the property from her late mother, Vanya’s sister. They are being visited by Sonya’s father, a university professor (Jeremy Drakes) and his younger wife Yelena. The local doctor, Mikhail Astoff, (David Tudor) calls most days.

All three men are in love with Yelena and Sonya is in love with Mikhail. None of it is requited or practical and Yelena eventually goes back to the city with her rather tedious husband. Chekhov and Twigg are interested in the effect this has on Vanya, still only 39, who sees himself with no future. Houlihan develops his character from a man who is irritated, frustrated and feeling put upon to one who is seriously deranged and disturbed to the point of being suicidal. It’s a strong performance.

Hardman’s Sonya is initially girlish and amiable but eventually finds powerful assertiveness as she gradually realises that she’s probably the only person who can save Vanya from himself.

There’s pleasing work too from David Tudor who opens the piece with a little lecture about bees and remains urbane for most of the time except when he’s alone with Yelena or towards the end of the play when we see his real anguish and passion.

The Old Red Lion – configured with a triangular playing space within a square studio theatre – is an ideal venue for the intimacy of this small scale Uncle Vanya. Intelligently directed by Nadia Papachronopolou, every word is audible but most of the acting is televisually natural.