Theatre review: Feathers in the Snow

The early part of this year was defined in many ways (by us obsessive theatricals at least) by a surge of Philip Ridley plays, which we christened the unofficial Ridleyfest 2012. So it seems appropriate that he has a second new play premiering as the year ends, and that it should open in the main house of Southwark Playhouse where his plays regularly appear, as the final production in the current venue (Simon Kenny's set and Gary Bowman's lighting making an atmospheric farewell to the railway tunnels.) Ridley's violently poetic plays have a recurring fascination with fairytales, which perhaps goes some way to reconciling his very adult plays with his other career as a children's author. Both of these strings to his bow come together now for Feathers in the Snow, an ambitious (perhaps too ambitious) family show with a scope that spans generations and a story that covers the births and deaths of nations.

Re-review: The Busy Body

A quick note about my return visit to Susanna Centlivre's The Busy Body (the second show this year at Southwark Playhouse that I felt I couldn't let close without a second viewing - talk about a theatre punching above its weight.) I wondered in my original review two weeks ago if I might squeeze in the final performance, and the frantic comedy was something I thought might appeal to Evil Alex, who's pretty hard to match to shows (he says he's pretty open to anything, as long at it involves puppets having sex, and a song about racism; so he's been trickier to cater for ever since Avenue Q closed.) So I dragged Alex along, and when there bumped into my Twitter friend Rob, also seeing it for a second time, and also bringing someone along, another Twitter friend, Emma. So there was a decent group of us taking our place in (of course) the front row, and enough other opinions to confirm that I wasn't mistaken the first time in how uproariously funny Jessica Swale's production is.

Theatre review: The Busy Body

Southwark Playhouse seems to be on an absolute roll for its final season before moving house, a record they can hopefully continue to build on. But if there's one thing I hope comes along to their new venue it's Jessica Swale's annual production of a Restoration Comedy (the programme note that The Busy Body is "part of a series exploring the 'lost' female wits" makes me optimistic about there being more to come.) This year a couple of cast members from The Rivals and The Belle's Stratagem return with the director for a story by another early female playwright, Susanna Centlivre, with a few adaptations by Swale herself: The play's original prologue quickly gets ditched in favour of a new one, in the form of a song celebrating Britain's female playwrights from Aphra Behn to Polly Stenham and - a handy plug for coming attractions at the same venue - Anya Reiss.