Ben Elton has worked hard to factor in some then-and-now social commentary to make this story of the skinny girl from Neasden who became DBE in 2019 seem relevant. But it feels contrived.

All this is a pity because there’s talent in the cast. Elena Skye has nailed a direct voice for Twiggy and her singing and dancing are very charismatic.  Hannah-Jane Fox is outstanding as Twiggy’s mum, beset with mental health problems but with warm wit, although it’s a shame that the narrative sails so quickly and lightly over the electro-convulsive therapy she was subjected to – an opportunity missed. Steven Serlin, who sings well, has a splendid gift for impersonation (David Frost, Melvyn Bragg and co) and brings loads of Lancastrian warmth to Twiggy’s dad.

The energetic ensemble, from which lots of quite appealing cameo roles emerge is slick and Jacob Fearey’s spikey choreography fits the mood –  and the small space.

Stuart Morley is in charge of the music and a seven piece band sits, often visibly, on a side platform above stage right. There’s a lot of nostalgia in the music – songs which connote the era from Gracie Fields and Dinah Shore  to Petula Clark and Bernard Cribbins and a lot more. It isn’t quite a juke box musical but occasionally one wonders if the choice of song is driving the narrative rather than the other way round. Either way Morley and his orchestra make a fine sound.

Close-Up is entertaining enough in its way. Twiggy is quite an interesting character, after all. It’s just that it lacks depth. I’d be interested to know how the real-life Twiggy (“Oh and she saved Marks and Spencers” as her mother comments at the end) feels about it. Justin de Villeneuve, to whom this show is not kind, will loathe it.

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• First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/close-up-the-twiggy-musical/

It’s always a pleasure to share a first (probably) experience of live Shakespeare with an exuberantly enthusiastic group of 10 and 11 year olds – in Hackney on this occasion.

And there is a lot to like about  NEI‘s three hander, mildly modernised,  55-minute version of the Scottish Play. It’s an inspired idea to create the characters and introduce them from a suitcase at the beginning and then to “find” the witches with a gauzy shared shawl and a bit of wafting stage smoke (designer: Rachana Jadhav).  I really liked Greg Hall’s music. He’s an accomplished cellist and his phone calls in modern “local” English to the professional assassin are a nice touch.  Segueing straight from the sleepwalking to “Out brief candle” by handing over a literal lighted candle works well too.

In short, using a text which neatly retains most of the famous original text lines but splices them together with current English and devices such as using phones for Macbeth’s letter home – another good idea – makes the story telling as clear as it could possibly be.

Abayomi Oniyde is a suitably troubled Macbeth, especially in the soliloquy scene before the murder of Duncan which is delivered as a partly adlib debate with the audience while he sits chummily amongst them on a suitcase. Valentina Creschi is manic as Lady Macbeth, confidently powerful as Macduff and gently thoughful as Banquo – she makes the distinctions very strongly. Greg Hall plays and produces sound effects almost continuously as well as morphing facially into one of the most sinister witches I’ve seen in a while.

Other characters are invited – Fleance, Malcolm and so on – from the audience as are the guests at the banquet and the English army. The actors are, though, on a learning curve with regard to young audience management which is not easy when you also need to stay in role. Given the level of excitement in the hall, the performance I saw came close several times to running out of control not least because of noise and continual incursions from nearby classrooms. This show is, however, at the beginning of its tour and this will improve. I’m sure director Michael Judge gave some useful notes afterwards.

No stage blood was used during this particular performance because there has recently been a violent death in the Gayhurst Community School community. This was carefully explained to me and apologised for. Actually convincing acting ensured that the lack of it barely noticed.

The question and answer session at the end was interesting. One perceptive girl shot straight to the crux of the play by asking: “Who really made Macbeth mad? Was it the witches or his wife?”  Well we’ve all written discursive exam answers to that question – O Level, GCSE, A Level, University etc – and of course, it’s definitively unanswerable which is the joy of Shakespeare and quite a discovery when you’re only ten. Michael Judge wisely turned the question back to the questioner.

First published by https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/macbeth-21/

Jermyn Street Theatre has always punched above its weight. And now, under Stella Powell-Jones’s artistic directorship it seems to be punching harder than ever. To stage the premiere of a new April de Angelis play is quite something. To cast it with talented mother and daughter, Caroline Quentin and Rose Quentin, splendidly directed by Michael Oakley, is definitely Something Else.

Most of us know the outline of this story. Emma Hamilton (rags to riches to rags) was Horatio Nelson’s adored mistress and for a while her flag flew as high up the mast as it possibly could. Then he was killed at Trafalgar in 1805 after which her fortunes waned, partly because the British government ignored the wishes of its most famous war hero. There was a daughter, though, who was proud to be Nelson’s child but in denial about the identity of her mother.

De Angelis has created a very clever double narrative exploration of motherhood out of this. In Act 1 we see Emma (Rose Quentin – glittering)  in Naples in 1798 about to seduce Nelson, more or less with her elderly husband’s tacit agreement. Her forthright mother, who speaks like a working woman from Cheshire (Caroline Quentin – down-to-earth and funny) acts as her housekeeper. Emma has already borne, and effectively abandoned, a child back in Britian.

Then in Act 2 comes a neat coup de theatre. We’ve slid forward 17 years. Caroline Quentin is now the aging, impoverished but still sparkily flamboyant Emma, alcohol dependent and in denial. Rose Quentin, now plainly dressed, practical and angry is her teenage daughter Horatia struggling with their life in the outhouse of a farm – actually a barn – in France.

Of course it makes sense. These women  across three generations would have looked alike and their behaviour would mirror, or react against, each other. And the powerful chemistry of the dialogue between them, including the pauses, is partly down to De Angelis’s sharp writing. As in Playhouse Creatures, she brings a historical situation to life by using language which is completely current. That  sense of communication, though, also relates to the casting of a real life mother and daughter. These are two people who know one another very well at every level and it shows.

The third cast member is Riad Richie and he’s hugely enjoyable too. He plays an unlikely, pushy Italian courtier in the first act and a gently gallant French farmer’s son in the second. Richie has fun with two exaggerated contrasting accents and skips around flirting with the audience. He even makes 2023 announcements and moves the furniture in role. He’s a refreshing contrast to the two women not least because his presence changes the dynamic and adds balance.

Best not to miss this one.

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  Photos: Steve Gregson

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First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/infamous/

This tight, visceral four hander is a debut play and a remarkable achievement for Deborah Frances-White. It is also a relatively unusual theatrical treat to see four highly accomplished actors playing off, and listening to, each other with this level of focused intelligence.

We’re in the Masada Restaurant in East London run by Jacq (Alex Roach) and her partner Kas (Amit Shah). The pandemic has left them facing bankruptcy, news which they now have to break to their wealthy friends, married couple Tobin (Greg Wise) and Adaego (Susan Wokoma) who financed the enterprise. All four were at university together.

That’s the exposition. What happens after that is a sharp, shocking and sometimes funny exploration of sexual, racial and gender politics. I was totally convinced by it all until a few minutes before the end when suddenly we’re in a Mozart Opera or a Shakespeare comedy with unlikely deals being made by two women out to fool the men.

Greg Wise is terrific as the only white male and a successful/wealthy one so he has a lot of power or thinks he has. It’s the drunken game of Never Have I Ever in which players force unexpected truths out of each other which throws up something he can’t deal with. Then we see hurt, anger, cool logic and incisiveness all done with the sort of timing you only get from a highly experienced actor.

Wokoma’s character is meant to be impressive and magnificent and she rises splendidly to the challenge. This is a woman you’d want on your side rather than anyone else’s and of course the script gives her plenty to say about the experience of being a black woman.

Roach presents a thoughtful, feisty, bi-sexual woman in Jacq with a huge talent as a chef but she’s troubled too and we see her three dimensionally especially in her scenes with Wokoma. Frankie Bradshaw’s set configures the whole playing area as a restaurant but the space in front, very close to the audience, represents the wine cellar and imaginative use is made of that for some two-person scenes.

Shah, of course, plays a brown man so he too has “otherness” issues but wears them lightly – often seeming the simplest and most straightforward of the four until he finally loses his cool in the second act and launches into and impassioned account of  his true feelings. It’s an arresting few minutes.

This production makes interesting use of stillness. All four actors are on stage, almost continuously. If two have a scene together then the others are usually silent, shadowy, stationary figures elsewhere on the set. Also fun is the use of loud music, strobe lighting and some neat choreography (movement director, Chi-San Howard) as the four of them get drunk in act one although it felt as if it belonged in a different play.

I am still pondering on the observation that you have to keep your head down to keep it above water.

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  Photos: Helen Murray

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This play, which premiered in 2005 at Soho Theatre, is new to me. And I’m forcibly struck by its total lack of theatrical pretentiousness. It is simply a well written four hander presenting four members of a family facing an imminent death.

Myra (Laura Fitzpatrick) has bone cancer and a few months to live. She is trying to be much more upfront and direct about this than her daughters and husband feel able to be and she wants a “green” woodland funeral. The play is set over six months in the family living room and in various possible burial venues.

I liked the paciness of Wade’s dialogue and very much admired Emma Riches’s beautifully nuanced work as the younger daughter, Harriet. She is one of those actors who can communicate volumes with a tilt of her chin or an eye movement and she finds a huge range of moods during the course of the play.

Also enjoyable was the sub plot about the broken boiler. Michael Tuffnell as Alec finally comes into his own with a wonderful telephone conversation with the boiler company. I’m not sure it actually adds much to the play but it is a fine five minutes of nicely paced comedy.

The set is ingenious in its simplicity. A few items of sitting room furniture are upended, rearranged and covered with cloths to represent different burial grounds, appropriately lit by Matthew Karmios as we progress through the winter to spring.  The music which covers the scene changes is pleasing too. Alec is a classical music buff so we get at various times, Mozart, Verdi, Vivaldi, Brahms and some evocatively remixed Purcell.

I’m doubtful, though, about the cardboard coffin. I attended a funeral recently which featured one and it was the traditional navicular shape. It certainly didn’t look like a coffee table.

Colder Than Here is not especially cutting edge but this production is decent work. Moreover, it’s a thoughtful piece of theatre and it’s always good to be made to think about the need to confront death and loss rather than deny it.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/colder-than-here-2/