Theatre review: Inside No.9 - Stage/Fright

"Janette Krankie wouldn't look us in the eye."

"That's 'cause she's only 4ft."

Last year Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith's comedy/horror anthology Inside No.9 ended after, somewhat inevitably, 9 series, but as a final farewell to the show the writer/stars have reunited for a stage version, Stage/Fright. This is a mix of greatest hits of the series itself, and new material that could only work on stage, and although the TV show did experiment with various genres outside of its original Tales of the Unexpected roots, this new stage extension to the canon focuses on the queasy mix of sometimes cheesy comedy and jump-scare horror that feels like the series' purest form (so in the unlikely event that anyone was hoping for the utter bleakness of something like "The Last Weekend" or "The Trolley Problem" drawn out to two-and-a-half hours, I guess they'll be disappointed.)

Theatre review: Twelfth Night, or What You Will(Regent's Park Open Air Theatre)

Well it's a good job I'm already more than familiar with the plot of this one, because any show featuring Nicholas Karimi as a sugar daddy in a low-cut top is going to be a tricky one to remember anything else about. Drew McOnie's first season of programming at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre starts with Twelfth Night, but it does share a thematic connection with his predecessor's final production, La Cage Aux Folles: Owen Horsley sets his production in a faded cabaret club, and even gives us a drag queen version of Sir Toby Belch. If the club's not heaving with customers it's probably because the owner, Olivia (Anna Francolini) has imposed a lengthy period of mourning for her dead brother, whose ashes she carries around with her everywhere, addressing her soliloquies to the urn. One regular patron is Orsino (Raphael Bushay,) who's performatively in love with Olivia, and keeps hoping despite all signs to the contrary that he might be able to woo her.

Theatre review: Tom Fool

I can see why prolific German playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz' 1978 play Tom Fool might seem ripe for revival: Its attack on capitalism dehumanising workers is particularly focused on the way it defines the roles and priorities of men and women, a relevant subject when clichés about masculinity are being interrogated. Whether that's enough to make an incredibly dry and dusty play feel worth another look in 2022 is a different story altogether. Otto (Michael Shaeffer) works on the assembly line at a BMW plant. He makes enough money to support his family and afford a few luxuries, but not so much that he doesn't need to keep an eye on the cost of everything, or treat his valuables with care: When the boss borrows his Parker pen and forgets to give it back, it's a matter for sleepless nights and worried rants to his wife for weeks.

Theatre review: Strictly Ballroom

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: Strictly Ballroom has its press night on the 24th of April.

I know it officially makes me a Bad Gay, but I haven’t seen Baz Luhrmann’s film Strictly Ballroom. This shouldn’t matter, of course, in seeing Luhrmann and Craig Pearce’s stage adaptation, and there’s certainly nothing so complex about the story that you’d need to already know it going in. Still, I can’t help but feel that not already being a fan of the 1992 film – as most of tonight’s packed preview audience clearly were – meant something about Drew McOnie’s production was definitely lost on me. Scott Hastings (Jonny Labey) is an amateur ballroom dancer competing in the Australian Federation, which insists that all entrants dance only the strictly prescribed steps; this is mainly because Federation president Barry Fife (Gerard Horan) has a lucrative side-line selling instructional videos that teach the set routines. Scott isn’t satisfied with only dancing someone else’s steps though.

Theatre review: Peter Pan (National Theatre)

"Sorry Peter, Wendy can't play today, she's getting a hip replacement."

Last year I left Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre at the interval, and Peter Pan isn't a favourite story of mine, so the combination of the two didn't make this year's NT family Christmas show appeal too much. It was only the eccentric casting of Sophie Thompson as Captain Hook that made me book, so the fact that Thompson broke her wrist (the irony!) and had to withdraw from the production was a disappointment to say the least. She's been replaced by Anna Francolini, an excellent choice but, after her villain on the same stage in last year's wonder.land, perhaps not quite as surprising. Wendy (Madeleine Worrall) and her younger brothers John (Marc Antolin) and Michael (John Pfumojena) are left home alone when their parents go to a work party, and flying green child Peter Pan (Paul Hilton) gets into their bedroom. After Wendy helps him get his shadow back, Peter teaches the siblings how to fly, and leads them to Neverland.

Theatre review: wonder.land

It's the clichés you always hear about musicals - that they're not written, they're rewritten; that every "effortless" hit has spent years in development - that come to mind during wonder.land, the National's much-maligned big winter spectacular. Perhaps going into it with low expectations helped, but it seems that under what is, undoubtedly, something of a mess, a pretty good show is struggling to get out and, given time, might well have done. As the title suggests, Moira Buffini (book and lyrics) and Damon Albarn's (music) musical takes Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland stories and transposes them to the digital age. Following her parents' breakup, Aly (Lois Chimimba) has moved to a new school where she immediately becomes a target of the resident mean girls, who bully her in real life and online.

Theatre review: Our Town

Occasionally I see productions of shows I was in at University, but tonight something a bit rarer - a play I was in at school. Of course it wouldn't be quite as rare in America - the cliché about Thornton Wilder's Our Town is that on any given day there's a production playing somewhere in the world, most likely in the US. Its simple staging conceit, decent-sized cast and homespun feel make it popular with local, amateur and school productions, but if it's notable for its simplicity it's definitely of the deceptive kind. In a production that originated in Chicago in 2008, David Cromer directs as well as playing the Stage Manager, the businesslike narrator who pieces the story together out of the barest theatrical techniques. It's the story of Grover's Corners, a small New Hampshire town, in the first decade or so of the 20th century; but the Stage Manager is looking at it from 1938 when the play debuted, so he knows from the start how everyone's story will end.

Theatre review: Mare Rider

After several failed attempts to have a baby, Selma (Anna Francolini) has had a difficult birth, and is now recovering in Homerton Hospital in Hackney. Spending much of her time asleep or sedated, her dreams are invaded by a nightmare figure from Turkish mythology, Elka the Mare Rider (Kathryn Hunter.) Elka is a millennia-old woman who haunts new mothers if they're not constantly attended, eventually taking the baby's life or - in exceptional circumstances - the mother can bargain with her to take her own. In Mare Rider Leyla Nazli brings a modern woman who's left it quite late to try for a baby, face to face with an ancient creature who doesn't think that much has changed for women since the days her legend was born.

Theatre review: Victor/Victoria

Thom Southerland's musical revivals have become a regular feature in Southwark Playhouse's Vault and hopefully one that will follow to wherever the new venue turns out to be. For the final show underneath Platform 1 of London Bridge he's taken us to 1930s Paris for Blake Edwards, Henry Mancini and Leslie Bricusse's Victor/Victoria. Anna Francolini is Victoria, a talented singer trying to get onto the Paris cabaret scene but lacking the extra something special that'll get people's attention. A chance encounter with Toddy (Richard Dempsey,) a gay cabaret singer who's also just found himself out of a job, leads to an idea for what that X factor might be: Victoria will use her vocal range to cash in on the trend for female impersonators by becoming Victor - a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. But the plan's instant success is put at risk when she falls for American gangster King (Matthew Cutts) and may need to reveal her true identity to get him.