Theatre review: Sweet Bird of Youth

I had a feeling that Daniel Evans taking over as Artistic Director of Chichester's theatres would make me break my previous rule of not making the trip to West Sussex; and with Ian McKellen revisiting King Lear there later this year it proved a bit too tempting. So in for a penny, in for a pound, I ended up booking three shows in the two theatres, and why not when there's the chance to see Brian J. Smith in another Tennesse Williams play only months after his memorable performance in The Glass Menagerie? This time he's Chance Wayne, the wannabe actor, more realistically a hustler, in Sweet Bird of Youth. A couple of weeks before we first meet him, Chance hooked up with a woman calling herself the Princess Kosmonopolis, who 's paying for a luxury lifestyle in return for his discreet companionship.

Theatre review: Cleansed

It can be hard to buy the critical opinion that underneath the torture porn Sarah Kane's work is essentially about love; but it's a fact that seems strangely obvious, yet hard to quite grasp, in the two hours of body horror that is Cleansed. Heroin addicted Graham (Graham Butler) dies of an overdose injected into his eye by Tinker (Tom Mothersdale,) in a decrepit institutional building (grungily designed by Alex Eales.) Some months later his (twin?) sister Grace (Michelle Terry) voluntarily checks herself into Tinker's care in an attempt to connect with her dead brother. There she witnesses, and becomes part of, the sadistic experiments that go on there: A couple, Rod (George Taylor) and Carl (Peter Hobday) are made to declare their love for each other, and Carl unwisely says he'd die for his lover, a statement the torturer decides to test - piece by piece.

Theatre review: Nell Gwynn

One bonus of blogging my thoughts about every show I see is that when I spot future talent, I can go back and be smug about it when I'm right. It's not just actors* - it's a pretty quick turnaround since I saw Jessica Swale's Nell Gwynn being premiered at LAMDA, and said the play deserved to be picked up by a professional company. A year later and it has been, by Shakespeare's Globe where Swale's playwrighting debut Blue Stockings was also staged. Christopher Luscombe directs the first professional production, and the venue's unique dynamic is a great match for a play that not only concerns itself with theatre behind the scenes, but is also positively meta about it. Because although Nell Gwynn's remembered mostly as the King's mistress, this is if anything the "B" plot of the play.

Theatre review: Richard II (Shakespeare's Globe)

Back to the Globe for the second night in a row, and right back to the beginning of the octet that ends with Richard III. In fact I can now say I've seen all of Shakespeare's Histories at this venue, now that Richard II has been added to the list. Charles Edwards plays King Richard, who was crowned as a child - in fact Simon Godwin's production opens with the additional scene of the young Richard's (Thomas Ashdown or Frederick Neilson) coronation. On a golden throne on a golden stage, he's showered with golden confetti that'll probably be stuck in the theatre's nooks and crannies for years to come (I know from groundlings that it's been stuck in their nooks and crannies for a while.) All this bling is in honour of a king who's grown up with the certain knowledge that his power is god-given, and who behaves accordingly. But when he banishes and disinherits his cousin Bolingbroke (David Sturzaker,) he finds that he's pushed the wrong man around.

Re-review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

If you don't know the plot of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, or anything about the adaptation by Simon Stephens and Marianne Elliott's hit production, you can read my previous reviews from when it ran at the Cottesloe and the Apollo, to get up to speed. The latter run came to an abrupt end when the ceiling fell in, but after a 7-month hiatus it's back, crossing the road to the Gielgud. It's not a desire to see the show in every theatre it sets up camp in that brought me back a third time (I won't be following it around on its upcoming tour or to Broadway, I'm not a crazy person.) It was rather the second major cast change that made me want to witness its return. Not just Graham Butler as the painfully literal-minded protagonist Christopher Boone, but Nicolas Tennant as his father Ed also seemed like perfect casting.

Theatre review: The True Tragedy of the Duke of York (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

One of my unwritten theatre reviewing rules is to provide a summary of the play for people who might be unfamiliar with it. Sometimes that's easier than others, and when it comes to The True Tragedy of the Duke of York things could get very tangled up. Suffice it to say that as we get to the last of the Henry VI plays the Wars of the Roses are in full swing and over the next couple of hours loyalties shift, many die, enough sons lose their fathers to populate an entire season of The X Factor, and Henry himself is deposed not once but twice. The Globe have been keen to point out that the three plays can be enjoyed individually, but there's no preamble at the start of this installment as the cast dive straight into a swordfight left over from last night. Having witnessed the first battle in the War of the Roses, King Henry will try anything to avoid new bloodshed, including disinheriting his own son in favour of York's bloodline. But the rest of the Lancastrians are horrified at his capitulation, and will fight to keep him on the throne he knows himself unsuitable for.

Theatre review: The Houses of York and Lancaster (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

Nick Bagnall's revival of Shakespeare's Henry VI plays continues with The Houses of York and Lancaster (actually the original full title was The First Part of the Contention Between the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster but the Globe have clearly balanced authenticity with common sense.) Having started to stand up to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester in Harry the Sixth, King Henry (Graham Butler) inadvertently opened the door for his enemies to get rid of the Lord Protector once and for all. Humphrey's young wife (Beatriz Romilly) will be his downfall, and when she's caught dabbling in black magic her husband is forced to stand down. Emboldened by his relationship with the new queen, the Duke of Suffolk goes one step too far and has Humphrey killed. Soon he too is dead, and the power vacuum around the weak king leads the Duke of York (Brendan O'Hea) to finally show his hand as a rival contender for England's throne.

Theatre review: Harry the Sixth (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

The play usually referred to as Henry VI Part 1 was written long before Shakespeare's more famous Henry V, but that play's ending haunts Harry the Sixth, the first in the trilogy which Shakespeare's Globe is staging under the plays' original titles. The Chorus of Henry V ends the play by reminding us how the warrior king's famous gains in France were quickly lost under his son's reign. And so as Harry the Sixth opens with the funeral of Henry V, his coffin remains on stage for the first half of Nick Bagnall's production, opening to reveal swords as the battles continue. The late king's successor as scourge of the French is the heroic Lord Talbot (Andrew Sheridan.) The Dauphin (Simon Harrison) and his cronies continue to be incompetents who spend most of their time bragging then running away, but this time they have a secret weapon: The teenage Joan of Arc (Beatriz Romilly) will prove Talbot's nemesis.