All photos: Pamela Raith Photography

Oh yes, this apparently perennial show has certainly bedded in beautifully since I first saw it (twice) at Arts Theatre three years ago. Totally original and gloriously sassy, it remains the sort of spellbinding theatre which keeps you smiling for the full eighty minutes. And it can now afford high level production values so the cheerfully assertive on-stage, all female four-piece band is surrounded by some (literally) flashy lighting, courtesy of Tim Deiling’s flamboyant design. Think dozens of traffic lights changing colour … and more.

In case you’ve been on a different theatrical planet for the last three years: this show, by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, presents the six queens of Henry VIII meeting for a competitive pop concert. Using a whole range of styles from Beyonce to Adele and from Ariana Grande to Alicia Keys, each tells her own story. This means that each of the six queens gets a spot to present events from her point of view – and we see the whole six wives phenomenon through a 21st Century feminist lens. Underneath the funny, outrageous costumes – very glittery with Tudor hints – the throwaway lines, the jokes and the irreverent lyrics (“Don’t be bitter because I’m fitter”) there are some serious points being made here. And that’s why it works so well. Like all the best shows it is multi-layered.

There are three versions of this show at present: the one I’m reviewing here in the West End, a touring production and one on Broadway. The Vaudeville theatre version has six named cast members, three “queens in waiting” and two cast as swing. At the performance I saw the six on stage were Jarneia Richard-Nioel as Aragon, Cherelle Jay as Boleyn,  Collete Guitart as Seymour, Alexia McIntosh as Cleves, Sophie Isaacs as Howard and Hana Stewart as Parr. Because, presumably, this particular team isn’t fully accustomed to working together there were one or two minor hitches in the dialogue but songs and Carrie-Anne Ingrouille’s entertainingly energetic choreography worked well – as ever.

All six flirt with the audience and pack sky-high levels of dynamic stage presence. I especially like big, bold McIntosh’s Anne of Cleves who, arguably gets the best deal – pensioned off to live independently in a palace as she keeps reminding us. And Cherelle Jay, who keeps popping up chirpily to point out that being beheaded is a bit final, is good value.

This show is a case study in runaway success. It began as the brainchild of two young people at Cambridge who took a little show to Edinburgh – since then, despite the pandemic which darkened it several times, it has been almost volcanic in its seemingly unstoppable growth. Perhaps it’s just what people need in these often uncertain, potentially gloomy times: lots of glitz, glamour, laughter and some good music.

Billed as a “show in development” this 60 minute piece – by definition –  needs more work. But it is already an arresting hour of intimate theatre.

I have known for a very long time about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in which hundreds (there is no accurate record of exactly how many) of Indian families were shot for “insurrection”  by British Troops in 1919.  But many British people don’t and I certainly wasn’t taught about it at school. They tended not to dwell on British shame when I was growing up.

Samaadhi explores the horror of that event  and reflects on colonial policy from a number of angles. And part of the aim is to make the appalling events of 1919 better known. We meet an old man remembering. We see early silent film actors discovering bullet holes in a wall. We hear the poetic, chilling rhetoric of the officer in charge and we watch a lot of shooting and dying. It’s pretty uncompromising, visceral  theatre for grown ups.

Mohit Mathur and Ivantiy Novak, the two actors who make all this happen, are both highly accomplished performers. The play uses mime, dance and physical theatre as well as speech – and maybe that’s one of the areas which needs refining because the structure feels episodically bitty in places and some of the sequences are arguably too long. The opening scene in which they are silent film actors with ragtime piano background is, for example, entertaining and beautifully done but feels a bit self indulgent given what the piece is actually about.

Novak, who wrote the play, has a quality of eloquent stillness and attentive listening which I found compelling. And he has one of the most attractive speaking voices I’ve heard in a young actor for a very long time – I hope he’s going to record some poetry (Shakespeare sonnets maybe) very soon if he hasn’t already done so.

Mathur is intensely moving as the elderly grandfather telling his grandson what he remembers and  when he depicts a man confronting a wolf, which presumably symbolises the enemy.  Both men are lithe, eloquent dancers and the choreography of the balletic movement sequences is excellent.

All this is accomplished without set and using just pink and blue Indian floral scarves, a walking stick and a single bullet. The scarves mostly show which side the man is on – red for Britain and blue for India and are folded and tied in different, imaginative ways to suggest, for example, a turban or a skirt. Even so the characterisation isn’t yet always clear as we move from one scenario to another. Perhaps as the piece develops the audience could be given slightly more explicit visual clues.

This was the first time I’ve been to the Bridge House Theatre, Penge since it reopened under new management. It now uses an upstairs black box studio space and has a pretty busy and eclectic opening programme. We had to vacate the auditorium quickly after Samaadhi because they needed to set up for a production about internet dating.  Variety and all that!

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

Brian (Simon Lipkin) is a flyboy, very dodgy and the last person you need as a friend, especially when you’re down. Roger (Dan Skinner) is a vulnerable, decent chap but very miserable, prone to making bad decisions and the least perceptive person on the planet who never learns from experience.

The two have met at a meeting for divorced dads. And I laughed a great deal as Brian exploits Roger repeatedly while the latter, ever reasonable, goes along with his schemes which lead the pair of them into situations which get more and more outlandish – and hilarious. If I mention – wire cutters and a surplus toe, trekking mountains in China alone on a donkey, poker games in an abattoir, SM with Ophelia, bestiality and assisting a disappearing clairvoyant you will get the flavour. It’s an escalatingly episodic piece which sustains the craziness for 2 hours including an interval.

I was, moreover, fascinated by the structure which is reminiscent of an 18th Century epistolary novel such as Les Liaisons Dangereuses. But this is the 21st Century so instead of letters the entire piece consists of phone messages which we see the two characters leaving for each other. Only once – in what is probably the funniest, most farce-like scene of all – are Brian and Roger in the same space. And then we can’t see them because there’s a power cut. It’s a clever play in which the audience sees further than Roger, over and over again because it’s so clear what Brian is up to. The joke is that Roger is taken in: a simple but effective form of dramatic irony.

Lipkin excels as Brian – slippery, cajoling, ebullient and manipulative. The scene in which he has a appointment with his SM “therapist” is unforgettable and all set up through a window in the right-angled set – which the audience views from the other two sides of the square.

Dan Skinner brings a sensitivity and humourlessness to Roger which is really convincing. The acting is very naturalistic not least because we start with two men who seem quite grounded back in London where their lives are not going well. The deadpan way they sustain this naturalism into the realms of farce and comic books is part of what makes this show work.

Timothy Bird’s video designs are a big plus too. Projected onto the right-angled back screen are constantly changing images – a London street, a red light district in China, the GPS map of Chinese mountains with moving spot (donkey), an abattoir and so on. Often they flash up to illustrate what’s being said which is, in itself, funny. Many of them are absurdly bright and some have a three dimensional illusion.

Brian and Roger is a spin off. It began life as a series of podcasts by Harry Peacock and Dan Skinner who started improvising sketches as two divorced dads simply to amuse themselves before realising that perhaps they were on to something. That, obviously, is why the stage show is episodic but it doesn’t matter at all. I came to it “cold”, knowing nothing about the podcasts and had a good evening. Anything which makes me laugh as much as that more than earns the fourth star.

First published by Sardines https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/brian-roger-a-highly-offensive-play/

The second Seventeenth Century-set show about witch hunts I’ve seen in a fortnight (cf The Witchfinder’s Sister at Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch), Caryl Churchill’s 1976 piece now creaks a bit. Despite the sterling efforts of director Matthew Parker and his talented cast it’s bitty and it’s no “Rock Musical”. The songs feel as if they’ve been bolted on for a change of mood – somewhere between Kurt Weill and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

That said, there are some terrific performances in this show. Emilia Harrild is superlatively good as Alice, the sassy prostitute whose mother is accused of witchcraft. She is sardonic, angry, undaunted even in distress and Harrild has a truly fabulous singing voice whether the number is lyrical or furiously rhythmic.

Jill Priest is moving as poor, misunderstood Joan and Melissa Shirley Rose finds lots of depth in Alice’s friend, Susan. Emma Thrower’s monologue as Goody, assisting the witch finder (Jon Bonner – strong work) is show-stoppingly chilling as she describes marks and growths on women’s bodies. They were regarded as the marks of the devil but everyone in a twenty first century audience can hear the symptoms of breast cancer, cysts and other medical conditions.

Many of the cast are versatile actor-musos too. Three electric guitars are picked up for songs and several cast members play basic keyboard. It’s odd, though that most of the songs are presented statically almost as if the cast briefly transforms into a choir.

Like all plays and novels about witchcraft the piece explores the nature of mass hysteria and fear which led to the bullying – and ultimately much worse – women on the edges of their community. How are Alice and Joan supposed to live if they’re not married? And this in a society which celebrates the activity of the witch Hunter and pays him for getting women hanged. Marriage, this feminist play, shows clearly is the only viable insurance policy. And of course those issues are still with us in various forms.

I was very sad to see only 28 people present on press night in a theatre (configured in the round with characters waiting in the corners) for over 90. Press nights are usually busy, buzzy occasions but this one was strangely subdued.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/vinegar-tom/