Theatre review: Big Fish

I’m not above enjoying something a bit sentimental at times, and Tim Burton’s film Big Fish was one case that hit the mark for me, so a musical adaptation of Daniel Wallace’s novel seemed worth a look. The film’s writer John August also provides the musical’s book, with songs by Andrew Lippa and, following an unsuccessful Broadway production, Nigel Harman directs a much-reworked, smaller-scale British premiere at The Other Palace. Edward Bloom (Sideshow BobKelsey Grammer) is in hospital, dying, and his recently-married son Will (Matthew Seadon-Young) wants to find out about his father’s life before it’s too late. The trouble is Edward has spent his life spinning tall tales and isn’t planning on telling a more down-to-earth version just yet. The play is based around his hospital room, as Will and his fellow-journalist wife Josephine (Frances McNamee) search for clues to the truth.

Theatre review: The Rover, or, The Banish'd Cavaliers

Best-remembered today as England's first female professional writer (although it turns out in the 19th Century her name was a euphemism for a reet dorty hoor, society having decided that "female professional writer" wasn't actually something they were ready for yet, thanks,) Aphra Behn's most famous play is The Rover, or, The Banish'd Cavaliers. The subtitle sets the action a couple of decades before the play's writing, during the exile of the prince who would eventually be Restored as Charles II. His followers, equally unwelcome in England during Cromwell's rule, had a mixed reputation, seen by some as accomplished soldiers, by others as thrill-seekers lacking morals. Behn gives us just such a mixed picture - veering towards the latter - in her quartet of Cavaliers who end up in an unnamed Spanish town during Carnival season, and intend to make the most of its spirit.

Theatre review: The Two Noble Kinsmen (RSC / Swan)

I saw my first Shakespeare production aged 15, an RSC production of Macbeth which, like the company's entire ensemble seasons in those days, came to the Barbican. The Macbeths I've seen since must go into double figures but not every play is as frequently revived, and thanks to my largely eschewing theatre in the late nineties and early noughties, completing the set ended up taking 27 years but I've finally seen every canonical Shakespeare play^ on stage. Nowadays you have to go to Stratford-upon-Avon to catch the less popular titles but it's good that I was back at the RSC to tick off the last show on the list, and also appropriate that it should be what's generally accepted to be Shakespeare's final extant play, and to this day the most obscure, the Fletcher collaboration The Two Noble Kinsmen. Set in the same time and place as A Midsummer Night's Dream, it seems Shakespeare thought all Theseus (Gyuri Sarossy) and Hippolyta (Allison McKenzie) ever did was fight wars and watch shows, because once again they spend the start of the show doing the former, and the rest of it doing the latter.

Theatre review: The Mother

Not only was The Father a critical hit last year (including with me - I put it in my 2015 Top Ten,) it was also a surprising commercial success: One West End transfer would have been impressive for a hallucinatory show about mental illness, but it's getting a second one and a tour. So it's not surprising to see Florian Zeller's companion piece The Mother (again translated by Christopher Hampton) follow it quickly to London, with Laurence Boswell's production setting up shop at the Tricycle. Where The Father's deliberately confusing scenes took us into the head of a man with a form of dementia, The Mother has a much younger character at its heart and a less obvious diagnosis, initially at least, as Anne (Gina McKee) seems to have reacted in an extreme way to empty nest syndrome. An upper-middle class housewife in her late forties, she's dedicated her life to her children, especially her son Nicholas (William Postlethwaite, adding to an already-impressive list of dubious facial hair choices,) for whom she shows an uncomfortably Oedipal level of devotion.

Theatre review: The Christmas Truce

The RSC's winter season contributing to the World War I centenary even takes in the family Christmas show; and where Love's Labour's Lost and Won take us either side of the war, Phil Porter's The Christmas Truce puts us in the thick of it. Part of the inspiration was a local Stratford celebrity other than the usual one: Bruce Bairnsfather was an electrician who helped set up the electrics of the original Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, and lit some early productions. But once war broke out he became famous for a different talent, as the comic cartoons he submitted to magazines became hugely popular. He was considered such a morale-booster that once injured he wasn't allowed to return to the front, so he could keep the nation's spirits up writing full-time. But before that he was also present at an event at Christmas 1914 that would become legendary.

Theatre review: Love's Labour's Lost (RSC / RST)

The RSC's six-year run through the Shakespeare canon now comes to a pair of comedies that possibly share a greater connection than is immediately apparent: There's a theory (one that I personally find very likely,) that the "lost" play Love's Labour's Won is in fact simply an alternative title for one of the extant comedies. The most likely candidate is Much Ado About Nothing, as its warring lovers Beatrice and Benedick could well be older versions of Rosaline and Berowne, the sparring partners separated at the end of Love's Labour's Lost. To test the theory, the two plays are being paired in productions by Christopher Luscombe at the RST, with Michelle Terry and Edward Bennett playing the lovers in both. They also see the RSC make their own contribution to the First World War centenary, as they're being set either side of the Great War, which is here what parts the couple.

Theatre review: Punishment Without Revenge

A dirty old man marries a young beauty for political reasons, then neglects her. Going off to war, he leaves her alone with his dashing illegitimate son. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? That's the setup for Lope de Vega's Punishment Without Revenge, a tragedy that provides the final installment of the Arcola's mixed, to say the least, Spanish Golden Age season. At least the last play in the repertory is the strongest offering, Laurence Boswell's production finding the drama in the Mediterranean histrionics, but tempering it with a dose of humour that works better than certain comedies I could mention. The central pairing from A Lady of Little Sense is reunited as a more tragic set of lovers, Nick Barber playing the illegitimate son Federico, who's always been promised he'd inherit his father's dukedom.

Theatre review: A Lady of Little Sense

The first chance for the Arcola's Spanish Golden Age rep season to atone for its green-trousered sins is another comedy of arranged marriages. There's nothing spectacular about Lope de Vega's A Lady of Little Sense, but it does have its moments, which at least puts it above the season opener. If there's echoes of a Shakespeare play again, this time it would be The Taming of the Shrew, as once again two very different sisters seek husbands. Nise (Katie Lightfoot) is highly intelligent and educated, but arrogant and abrasive with it. Her younger sister Finea (Frances McNamee) on the other hand is a childlike, clumsy, prattling moron. Finea's dowry is vastly bigger than her sister's to make up for her shortcomings, but it's still not enough for any man to put up with her borderline insanity. Until Nise's favourite suitor Laurencio (Nick Barber) decides to switch his attentions to the wealthier, stupider sister.