Theatre review: Bird Grove

Alexi Kaye Campbell throws a little dig at himself in Bird Grove, as a male writer telling the story of how women's voices needed to be heard, and how one woman made sure hers was one of them. She did do it under the male pseudonym of George Elliot, but in 1841 she's still Mary Ann Evans (Elizabeth Dulau,) a woman whose family is starting to worry might be getting too old to attract a husband. Her father Robert (Owen Teale) has recently retired after a lifetime of hard work which has, however, left him financially very comfortable: He's bought Bird Grove House in Coventry for him and his daughter to live in; the idea is that they'll settle into a new area as a respectable family who'll attract eligible young men to propose to Mary Ann. This isn't getting off to the best start though, as her brother Isaac (Jolyon Coy) has brought along a very bad match in Horace (Jonnie Broadbent.)

Theatre review: Apologia

Add to the list of things I never realised I needed to see: Alicia Florrick’s mom, Martha Jones, Fit Dad and my first Malvolio, all on stage together. Plus the woman who woke Peter Hall up from his nap that time, although she’s got a bit better at the acting since then. Following The Pride a couple of years ago, Jamie Lloyd revives another Alexi Kaye Campbell play at Trafalgar 1, with Stockard Channing taking on the role of esteemed art historian and 1960s political activist Kristin in Apologia. The setup is the well-worn dinner-party-from-hell format, as Kristin hosts family and friends to celebrate both her birthday, and the publication of her latest book, also titled Apologia. This one’s marketed as a memoir of her life, which makes the fact that it doesn’t even mention the existence of her two sons (both played by Joseph Millson) an omission which seems to distill their relationship.

Theatre review: Sunset at the Villa Thalia

A playwright who has the same background as me - half-English, half-Greek - Alexi Kaye Campbell has dealt with a variety of themes, and now writes a play that looks at, or at the very least is set in, Greece. The subject matter of the military junta of the colonels in the late '60s and early '70s is a bit before my time and, while I wouldn't say it was a taboo subject when I was growing up, it's not something I was taught at school or know that much about. Not that Sunset at the Villa Thalia tackles Papadopoulos & co directly; Act I takes place in 1967, on the very day of the coup, but the setting is one where its influence is unlikely to be felt anytime soon: The island of Skiathos where young English couple Charlotte (Pippa Nixon) and Theo (Sam Crane) are renting a house from a local family for a few weeks.

Theatre review: Outbox: Snapshots

Something a bit different to my usual reviews of fully-staged shows, this was a one-off performance of short gay and lesbian plays from Outbox, a company that stages work from all-LGBT writers, creatives and actors. Don't Cock It Up by Frazer Flintham is a bit of a dig at gay theatre in general, in which a playwright tries to make a commentary on how gay plays are shallow and focused on just sex; only to have the producers remove the commentary and make his play just about sex. Frog Stone's Waiting for Yoko sees two women who don't know each other well, waiting for their mutual friend to arrive so they can go to the titular concert. While they wait for her, Alex (Victoria Jones,) tries to put Jen (Stella Taylor) off dating the woman she herself is still clearly in love with. Then comes the reason that I and three of my Twitter friends dragged ourselves to Dalston on a Sunday night, a new Tom Wells monologue, My number 1 favourite lesbian.

Theatre review: The Pride

Unlike the Michael Grandage season it emulates in some ways, Jamie Lloyd's project at Trafalgar Studios didn't announce its full programme in advance. One reason given is that it enables Lloyd to decide closer to the time what to stage, and thus respond to the times. The topicality of his revival of The Pride is obvious at the curtain call, where the actors bring on "To Russia With Love" placards protesting at the recent homophobic, discriminatory laws there. Alexi Kaye Campbell's breakthrough play charts the gay experience closer to home, but its ambition lies in its scope, attempting to chronicle both the colossal changes in law and attitude towards homosexuality over the course of 50 years, but also how the ghosts of past shame can still hang over modern-day pride.

Theatre review: Bracken Moor

Alexi Kaye Campbell seems a writer who's not afraid to play around with genre. His latest play, Bracken Moor, premiering at the Tricycle in a co-production with Shared Experience, is a meditation on economics and empathy. Though Campbell's political view is rather heavy-handedly incorporated into the narrative (I tend to agree with him but still found it unsubtle,) the format he's come up with is something I've never seen attempted before: Bracken Moor frames its politics in a ghost story. It's 1936, there's a financial crisis, and Harold Pritchard (Daniel Flynn) owns a lot of land in Yorkshire, including a number of coal mines. Ten years ago his young son Edgar died rather gruesomely, and while Harold has carried grimly on, his wife Elizabeth (Helen Schlesinger) has become a nervous, guilty wreck, staying secluded in their big gloomy house, wishing for death. But a decade on she has finally conceded to a visit from her oldest friend Vanessa (Sarah Woodward) and her husband Geoffrey (Simon Shepherd,) who used to be regular guests.