Theatre review: Man and Boy

So far Indhu Rubasingham's approach to classics at the National has involved a quirky sensibility from her directors to keep things feeling fresh, but with a light enough touch not to frighten Aunt Edna. For the era's first Dorfman show we go to the ever-reliable Terence Rattigan, and a production that takes him out of the naturalistic confines that gave him an undeserved stuffy reputation for many years, but doesn't detract from the cleverness of his writing: The lesser-known Man and Boy takes place in 1930s New York, with the country in the throes of the Great Depression but a few wealthy financiers still having held on to their money. One of them is Gregor "GA" Antonescu (Ben Daniels,) a Romanian radio magnate whose luck might be about to run out: Rumour has it that a huge merger has fallen through, and his stock is plummeting.

Theatre review: Summer and Smoke

I’ve only seen one show directed by Rebecca Frecknall before, a production of the obscure Tennessee Williams play Summer and Smoke at Southwark Playhouse in 2012. Well either Frecknall herself or Rupert Goold must have thought she had unfinished business with it, as she now makes her Almeida debut with… a production of the obscure Tennessee Williams play Summer and Smoke. In a small Mississippi town early in the 20th century, Alma Winemiller (Future Dame Patsy Ferran) is the local minister’s daughter, timid, bookish and prone to panic attacks, with a slightly affected accent – which she puts down to her father having spent time in England, but most of the town sees as further evidence that she’s pretentious. She’s been quietly besotted with her neighbour, the doctor’s son John Buchanan (Matthew Needham) since high school and, after some time away studying medicine, John has returned for the summer.

Theatre review: The Curing Room

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: This was a London preview of a show officially premiering at this year's Edinburgh Fringe.

Regular readers of this blog (both of them) might have spotted that among the many things I like to see on stage, male nudity and a spot of gory violence are perennial favourites. So a play that combines large amounts of both should be very much my idea of fun (in fact I only found out about this play because a number of people contacted me about it, as if I have a reputation or something¹.) But among the many strengths of The Curing Room, "fun" isn't too high on the list. Inspired by a couple of brief, anecdotal accounts from the Second World War, as well as taking in elements from famines in Stalinist Russia, David Ian Lee's play sees seven Russian soldiers thrown naked by the Nazis into the cellar of a Polish monastery. They try to keep their spirits up but after a few days it becomes increasingly apparent they're unlikely to be rescued - indeed, they may have been forgotten altogether. (Some NSFW imagery after the text break.)