Photo: Helen Murray

The relationship between troubled sons and brittle, sexually active mothers is a rich source for drama. Shakespeare exploited it in Hamlet. So did Chekhov in The Seagull. And anyone who thinks Noel Coward was all about witty froth would do well to remember that his take on the mother/son theme, The Vortex (1924) was his first major success. It’s serious, quite dark stuff too, just spiced with the occasional whiff of Cowardian irony.

Moreover, if you can cast a talented real-life mother and son (Lia Williams and Joshua James) then there’s bound to be some pretty potent chemistry.  Yes, we’re in plush, stereotypical Coward drawing room (design by Joanna Scotcher) with tea tables, comfy sofas and a piano on which James’s character Nicky plays extracts from George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue which dates from the same year as the play. Or at least that’s where we are until, along with some dramatic work with the revolve, it all disappears as we enter a bare-staged quasi nightmare with Lia Williams’s Florence.

It opens like a traditional drawing room drama with the cast of ten gradually assembling. Nicky, to everyone’s surprise, brings his new fiancée (Isabella Laughland)  home to meet his mother. There’s tension immediately and it later transpires that she and Florence’s lover know each other well. Also in the mix is an outrageously camp friend (Richard Cant having fun), a jazz singer, a family friend and Nicky’s very marginalised father.

It’s “a vortex of beastliness” in which jealousy is the norm and hardly anyone is reasonable with anyone else. There’s a lot of meaty subtext which would repay detailed study. The “closet scene” in which Nicky and Florence finally confront each other in a rawly empty, smoky  space is electric and we know that although promises are eventually extracted, the chances of their being kept are minimal. It’s a nuanced, ambiguous conclusion.

Williams, tall lithe and imposing glitters in this role and perfectly captures Florence’s shallow self-absorption along with her vulnerabilities. And James matches her beautifully. One isn’t surprised to read that he has, in the past, played both Konstantin and Hamlet. The support cast does a generally convincing job too.

The Vortex was originally a three act play. This production gives us a succinct version which runs for a continuous 90 minutes. Thus the pace never flags and it flows coherently towards its powerful final scene.

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  All photos: Helen Murray

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• First published by Sardines https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/the-vortex/

Photo: Robert Piwko

Nina Raine’s perceptive reflection on justice, morality, law and marriage feels as fresh now as it did when it debuted at National Theatre in 2017.

Four lawyers, bantering and often cynical, have interwoven lives. Jake (Nicholas Gill) and Rachel (Zella Rita Mazele) are husband and wife. Edward (Nick Edwards) and Time (Liam Brown) are their colleagues. Kitty (Ruth Kirby) is a publisher on maternity leave, married to Edward and Zara (Natalie Ava Nasr), who’s an actress, is friend of Kitty’s. Then there’s Gayle (Alexa Wall who doubles as Laura, a child custody lawyer) whose alleged rapist is prosecuted by Tim and defended by Edward. The relationships are not straightforward or fixed and there’s a lot of distress and reconciliation much of which relates to who has given sexual consent to whom. It’s certainly a thoughtful play with plenty to say to the me-too generation.

This pleasing production, niftily directed with a fine finale tableau, features seven competent actors who play off, and respond to each other pretty effectively. Liam Brown, in particular, is convincingly naturalistic as a lawyer conducting a difficult interview with a client. Then we see him with his friends sparring grittily while maintaining charismatic calm and quiet sex appeal – an all round impressive performance. Also excellent is Ruth Kelly, initially the exhausted mother of a new born, then as an anxious friend, later as a furious wronged wife and ultimately a in a (sort of) resigned resolution. Her range is striking.

Athena Maria’s set gives us a bar behind some sitting room furniture. It rather neatly serves as a kitchen, a pub and witness box. The sofas have symbolic function too. Moving them to different positions relates to the relationships of their owners in different spaces.

It’s an enjoyable account of a challenging play.

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  All photos: Robert Piwko

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• First published by Sardines https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/consent-2/

Sebastian Croft as Leo & Eileen Atkins as Vera in 4000 Miles at Chichester Festival Theatre Photo: Manuel Harlan

This refreshing play is not edgy. Neither does it pose big difficult questions, use abstruse theatrical devices or run for three increasingly puzzling hours. Instead it is a supremely beautiful, truthful, tender 90-minute look at the family dynamic between a New York grandmother and her hippy grandson. And it’s a delight.

Vera Joseph (Eileen Atkins), based pretty faithfully on the playwright’s still living grandmother, is ten years a widow. Then in the early hours of one morning her grandson Leo (Sebastian Croft) turns up with his bike, having cycled from Seattle. Gradually we learn that he’s estranged from his parents, has fallen out with his girlfriend (Nell Barlow) and that something awful has happened to his friend.

Atkins, as you’d expect is phenomenal. Her character is forthright, wise and more than a bit lonely. Atkins has an extraordinary gift for commicating with her eyes – quizzical, horrified, distressed and a lot more. In places this play is very funny and often the humour comes merely from her perfectly timing a look or a remark. When, for example, Leo finally tells Vera what happened to his friend it’s intense and poignant. When he stops talking there’s a pause before she says “I’m not wearing my hearing aids”. Yes, she and director Richard Eyre are both veterans. They know exactly how to get the most from every word and how to milk an anti-climax.

Also excellent is Sebastian Croft. Leo starts as an apparently brash quite “woke” young man but, irrespective of his bluster, Croft makes it subtly clear that Leo’s arrival at his grandmother’s apartment at 3 o’clock in the morning must be some sort of crie de coeur. And we see him all moods – trying to make out with a fluffy, frothy girl (Elizabeth Chu) he has picked up and brought back to the flat is very convincing but it’s pretty predictable that it will end in Vera’s stumbling into the sitting room in her nightie and discovering them. Croft captures every mood and shows us his character gradually maturing and deepening.

It’s all set in an attractively comfy, bookish sitting room (design by Peter McKintosh) which sits very well on the Minerva’s angled thrust. The doors off it – with the suggestion of two bedrooms, kitchen and the hallway outside the apartment – are neatly done too.

Atkins on stage is like watching a masterclass in acting and it must have been a fabulous and enviable experience for these three young actors to work with her and Richard Eyre. No wonder every move and every word in this production feels as natural as breathing – always the measure of a really fine production. In short: one of the best things I’ve seen this year.

First published by Sardines https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/4000-miles/

Rehearsal photo: Peter Buncombe Photography

This imaginative, very professional production is fine example of how to turn what is basically a pretty banal, uneven piece into vibrant entertainment.

The story of empty headed, fashion loving, sorority-obsessed Elle Woods (Kaitlin Berridge) and her journey through Harvard Law School is an obviously unlikely journey of discovery. Naturally she’s going to succeed as a lawyer against the odds and of course she will ultimately reject the man whom she chased to Harvard, once she recognises her own worth. Narrative surprises are thin on the ground.

Berridge is one of the best I’ve seen in this role. She starts in the expected frothy pink and appears shallow but develops real depth as the show proceeds. She is warm,  feisty and intelligent and effortlessly keeps the audience on side. Her singing is more than competent, is a strong naturalistic actor and no mean dancer. The opening scenes with her sorority (good to see so many accomplished young women in the cast) are arrestingly lively and her outrage, when the whole thing turns jarringly serious towards the end is powerful.

There is a lot of talent in the support cast too. Michael Broom delights as the very decent Emmett in contrast to the foul, authoritarian Professor Callahan. Andrew Ruddick makes the latter totally believable strutting about controlling everyone and then, revoltingly, making a pass at Elle. He is, in turn slick, funny and foul and it’s pretty compelling.

One of the better things about this show is the number of opportunities it provides for cameo roles. Rodger Lloyd, for instance, briefly steals the show as the absurdly sexy Kyle, a UPS man. Amelia Bass sings beautifully as Paulette, the hairdresser who befriends Elle.

Daisy Bates, moreover, is fabulous as Brooke, the fitness empire proprietor who is accused of murdering her husband. The astonishing skipping scene which she leads will stay with me for a long time – just one example of the splendid choreography built into this show by co-directors Helen Petrovna and David Barrett.

Much of the Legally Blonde music (by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin) is instantly forgettable and their lyrics are tediously repetitive. How many times do we hear “Omigod You Guys”? Much of it is lifted too. “Gay or European” is funny but only because it’s straight out of G&S. Nonetheless the band under Jennifer Edmonds does a rousing job with some attractive solo work.

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  Rehearsal photography

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  Peter Buncombe Photography

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This decent, five-hander sixty-minute show is a real mixture. At its heart is Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen retold by Julian Chenery with lots of borrowing from elsewhere. The quest to the Snow Queen’s palace owes a lot (including the permitted eight bars of music) to The Wizard of Oz with Gerda (Isabella Kirkpatrick) setting off to rescue her friend Kai (Daniel Wallage – good). En route, she gathers companions including a very familiar scarecrow worrying about his lack of brains. Also in the mix are pantomime conventions including appeals to the audience and invitations to sing along and a series of quite clever crow puns for the appreciation of attentive grown ups.

Zoe Beardsall is well cast as the Snow Queen because her unusual height makes her seem imposing and powerful. She doubles as several other things including a rather jolly Finnish woman and has impressive full belt singing capacity. Kirkpatrick is strong as  the feisty Dorothy-like Gerda and looks good beside Beardsall because of the dramatic height difference. Jim Burrows has a lot of fun as the cheeky, pushy Snowman although I’m very glad I don’t have to do three shows a day under stage lights in that costume.

Hugo Joss Catton is a refreshing reindeer – the third companion who joins Gerda along the way. The front leg stilt idea has, of course, been done many times since we first saw it in The Lion King but Catton’s body work and the unlikely way he uses the front legs in dance is exceptionally good fun. He also brings comforting gravitas as Hans Christian Andersen occasionally contributing narration.

This show has been revived several times since it debuted in 2015. The 2023 version is directed by Olivia Chenery (Shakespeare 4 Kidz is a family business). It did three shows free for primary schools in Croydon before its tour of Dubai. What it lacks in originality it makes up for in energy and commitment. And most of the children I saw it with were clearly engaged and enjoying themselves.

First published by Sardines https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/the-snow-queen-99/