Theatre review: Ghosts

I dithered over whether to see the Lyric Hammersmith's new version of Ghosts: The Swanamaker's 2023 production was possibly the best I've seen, and when something like that is comparatively recent I can be loath to spoil the memory with something that might not live up to it. In the end I gave Gary Owen's version, which reunites him with regular director Rachel O'Riordan and star Callum Scott Howells, a go in part because it sounded like it would essentially be a new, entirely different play. After all, Iphigenia in Splott and Romeo and Julie took only loose inspiration from the classics their titles alluded to. But Ghosts isn't quite the same kind of complete reinvention, nor is it really a version of Henrik Ibsen's original as advertised: Instead it starts with Ibsen and goes off in a different direction, and it's in being neither one thing nor the other that I found it stumbled.

Theatre review: A View From The Bridge

It's ten years since Ivo van Hove's production of A View From The Bridge not only made a star of the Belgian director in London and New York, but also tangibly influenced the way a lot of theatre has been approached since then. It feels a lot more recent than a decade, but then all that influence is probably part of that (along with the fact that I have seen it a bit more recently than that, as a streamed recording during lockdown.) So in some respects it probably is time for someone to revisit Arthur Miller's domestic tragedy as a whole new generation can see it with fresh eyes; but for many of us it'll be slightly odd to see a production that keeps the original details and trappings of post-War New York, where Italian-American families live under the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge and work - when they can find work - loading and unloading ships on the docks.

Theatre review: Romeo and Julie

It's 2023 but shows that I originally had tickets to see in 2020 are still making their belated returns. Callum Scott Howells had already been slated to appear in Gary Owen's Romeo and Julie then, but in the intervening time his appearance in It's A Sin and subsequent status as The Gay Internet's Official Fantasy Boyfriend of 2021 means he brings some added star power now the show finally premieres. It was worth the wait to get the show on with Howells in place: He plays Romeo (pronounced Romeo, but usually referred to as Romy,) an 18-year-old single dad who can't even rely on his alcoholic mum Barb (Catrin Aaron) for help babysitting his daughter. Like Owen's previous plays this takes place in the impoverished Cardiff suburb of Splott, but presumably on its edges: Julie (Rosie Sheehy) only lives a couple of streets away, but has led a much easier life so far.

Theatre review: She Loves Me

I started 2016 with a musical about a rather niche subject; I end the year on a more old-fashioned one that isn't strictly speaking formulaic - it became the formula for several Hollywood Rom-Coms. She Loves Me has a book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and takes its story from Hungarian play Parfumerie, about hate turning to love in the titular shop. Georg (Mark Umbers) is the perennially single deputy store manager who's resorted to a lonely hearts column, and has fallen for a woman he's been exchanging letters with. When one of the shop clerks leaves, her replacement Amalia (Scarlett Strallen) instantly annoys him by selling a music box he'd bet would be unsellable, and their relationship is fractious from then on. Needless to say, Amalia is actually the "Dear Friend" he's been writing to, and she feels the same way about his letters.