Theatre review: An Interrogation

Cameron (Jamie Ballard) is the founder and CEO of a successful consultancy firm with government contacts; he's got a ruthless reputation tempered with charity work, and he spends most weekends looking after his aging mother. But police officer Ruth (Rosie Sheehy) is pretty convinced his mild image is distracting from more than just the large swathes of redundancies his company has been responsible for: She also believes that he kidnapped and murdered one of his employees a few months back. Now another young woman is missing, and if it's the work of the same person she might have been kept alive for up to 72 hours. The Reading police are under pressure to find the second victim while she's still alive, and with hours to go Ruth has been given the chance to try out her hunch: With her boss watching from a nearby room, she'll interview Cameron alone.

Theatre review: The Duchess of Malfi

This blog is now so old (and I'm so old) that theatres are celebrating milestones that I've previously reviewed here. The Swanamaker is marking its tenth anniversary with a new production of The Duchess of Malfi, the play that launched the venue. John Webster's infamous love of all things gory, twisted and morbid makes for a play I largely enjoy for how its extremes tip it into (possibly unintentional but honestly who knows) comic hysteria by the second half, but Rachel Bagshaw's production actually manages to find a genuine character piece in there as well. The Duchess (Francesca Mills) has been widowed very young and left with a life of luxury ruling her court: She promises her brothers she has no intention of ever marrying again. But this is a distraction technique to stop anyone trying to find a suitable second husband for her.

Theatre review: Romeo & Juliet (Almeida)

Now pretty firmly established as the Almeida's current big-draw director, Rebecca Frecknall tackles her first Shakespeare at the venue, and goes for one regular readers will both know I rarely get on with. In Romeo & Juliet a gang war between two families has been a blight on Verona for who knows how many years if not centuries. Romeo (Toheeb Jimoh) and Juliet (Isis Hainsworth) are teenagers from opposite sides of the conflict, but when Romeo sneaks into a party at his enemies' home, he and Juliet fall in love at first sight. Aware that their families' feud will forbid any relationship between them, they go for an extreme solution and marry in secret. But the violence affects them directly soon enough, Romeo gets exiled for murdering Juliet's cousin, and their convoluted plots to continue fooling their families end in tragedy.

Theatre review: The Tempest (RSC / RST)

2023 marks the 400th anniversary of the First Folio's publication, and both the RSC and the Globe are using that as the theme for their seasons, predominantly programming plays that don't exist in quarto form, so wouldn't have survived if they hadn't been included in the OG collected works edition. This means there's going to be a bit of overlap between the two major Shakespeare venues, and Stratford-upon-Avon kicks off the year with one of those that's getting multiple productions, and the one that got the opening slot in the Folio itself: Elizabeth Freestone's production of The Tempest uses the titular bad weather as a prompt to theme the play around the climate crisis, and attempt a carbon-neutral, waste-free production - Tom Piper and Natasha Ward's designs reuse props and costumes from past productions, upcycle a lot of plastic rubbish, and rescue a huge distressed mirror from Indhu Rubasingham's bins.

Stage-to-screen review: Henry VI Part 1Open Rehearsal Project (RSC)

The Phantom Menace of Shakespeare's Plantagenet history cycle, Henry VI Part 1 is the unloved prequel that seems to exist mainly to cause a headache for companies like the RSC and Globe: There's an expectation that they'll make their way through the entire canon every decade or so, but a couple of the plays feel like a hell of a lot of effort and expense for a show nobody will actually want to come and see. As the least popular part of an extended sequence of plays Henry VI Part 1 suffers the most from this - I've only seen it live in its own right once - and theatres tend to go for some variation of not actually staging it and saying they did. Usually this involves merging it into the other two Henry VI plays, like the Swanamaker's last attempt did particularly ruthlessly, but the RSC chose instead to make a virtue out of necessity and knock this one out as a lockdown project online: Gregory Doran and Owen Horsley directed a professional cast in rehearsals last summer, which were live-streamed for anyone interested in seeing the company's rehearsal process.

Theatre review: Henry VIII (Shakespeare's Globe)

Despite being named after a monarch more famous than any of Shakespeare's other History Plays, Henry VIII has always languished in obscurity - this is only the second time I've seen the play, and I've yet to see any evidence that it deserves better. It's one of the late collaborations with John Fletcher, with all the unevenness that implies, but it's also a play that reflects the way Shakespeare's work tended to bow to the trends of its time, in this case the popularity of big spectacle and pageantry (so much so that it's best known for including the special effect that burned down the original Globe.) It also came a decade after the death of the last Tudor monarch, meaning it was now safe to portray that particular dynasty on stage, while also tapping into nostalgia for Elizabeth I's reign. All solid commercial reasons for creating a show, and the latter element feels topical, seeing it on the Jubilee weekend, but they don't suggest a great play for the ages.

Theatre review: The White Devil

The Swanamaker launched with The Duchess of Malfi and now returns to the convoluted plots of John Webster for The White Devil - a play that's always failed to make much of a lasting impression on me, and although well-done I don't think Annie Ryan's production will change that too much. Joseph Timms plays Flamineo, who's so sick of not being rich he's willing to pimp out his married sister Vittoria (Kate Stanley-Brennan) to the wealthy Duke of Brachiano (Jamie Ballard.) But Brachiano becomes so enamoured of Vittoria he has her husband and his own wife murdered so they can be together. It backfires when Vittoria is accused of the murders and sent to a home for repentant prostitutes. While the family try to get their good name back, the dead Duchess' brother Francisco (Paul Bazely) plots revenge on Brachiano and all those who helped him.

Theatre review: The Merchant of Venice (RSC / RST)

With three productions of The Merchant of Venice in the same year it might be difficult for each one to establish its own identity, but they've managed it; Polly Findlay's at the RSC does so by stripping everything back to the bare essentials, both of text and staging. One thing that isn't pared down though is the story's homoerotic potential: Antonio (Jamie Ballard) is the wealthy titular merchant, Bassanio (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) his young friend, and with Findlay showing the pair kissing from the outset, it's clear they're more than just friends, and there's a reason Antonio is so smitten he'd do anything to help him. Anything including signing a decidedly dodgy bond to guarantee a loan on Bassanio's behalf: He's been openly abusive to Jewish moneylender Shylock (Makram J. Khoury,) but to finance Bassanio's get-rich-quick scheme Antonio agrees to forfeit a pound of his flesh if he fails to repay the debt. It's impossible for all his outstanding investments to fail at the same time - except of course they all do.

Theatre review: In the Vale of Health: Missing Dates

SIMON GRAY: Hello my agent! Simon Gray here. I've written a play called Japes, it's about some obnoxious, drunk intellectuals fucking.
SIMON GRAY'S AGENT: Well, you're Simon Gray, so that's pretty much what I'd expect. Shall we go stage it in a theatre then?
SG: Sounds like a plan.

(some time passes)

SG: It's Simon Gray again! Remember that play Japes?
AGENT: Yes, we staged it, on a proper stage, with human actors and everything. It was OK.
SG: Well, I was wondering what would happen if I changed a couple of words in the first three scenes - would the story turn out differently?
AGENT: Oh, well that's a wacky thought to have. Bye then.
SG: No, I actually wrote it! It's called Japes Too, and 3/4 of it is indistinguishable from Japes.
AGENT: Hmmm, sounds like staging that within a decade of Japes would be utterly pointless. How about a rehearsed reading? If we're lucky it might rain, and some students might come see it to stay dry.
SG: That'll do!

(some more time passes)

Theatre review: In the Vale of Health: Japes Too

Three quarters of the way through Simon Gray's In the Vale of Health sequence, and all I am is more strongly convinced that staging this quartet is an incredibly elaborate vanity project, and one created for the benefit of someone who isn't even alive to enjoy it. The original stand-alone play was Japes, about a ménage à trois that sees Anita (Laura Rees) married to Michael (Jamie Ballard) for decades while carrying on an on-off relationship with his younger brother Japes (Gethin Anthony.) Then there was Michael, a shorter piece which ditched the first act and retold the second from an ever-so-slightly different angle. And now there's the third (though written second) in Hampstead's series, Japes Too, which aims to follow the characters from the original play, but see how things might have turned out if certain details had been different.

Theatre review: In the Vale of Health: Japes

Simon Gray wrote Japes in 2001 as a stand-alone play; the other installments that make up the In the Vale of Health sequence were later additions to the story of its central characters, when he felt the work as performed didn't say everything he wanted to about them. So Japes should be a play I can easily look at in its own right, but the fact that I saw companion piece Michael last week turns out to make a huge difference to how I react to the original. Here we first join the love triangle in the early 1960s: Michael (Jamie Ballard) lives with his brother Japes (Gethin Anthony) in the house they inherited from their parents. He's starting to fall in love with Anita (Laura Rees) and approaches his brother to ask his advice on whether he should propose to her, even though Japes barely knows her.

Theatre review: In the Vale of Health: Michael

Hampstead Downstairs is staging a quartet of Simon Gray plays in an ambitious project that'd already borne fruit before it even opened: Having quickly sold out, the rep season will transfer to the main house after its run in the studio. Gray's In the Vale of Health project stems from his 2000 play Japes, about a love triangle featuring two brothers. After the play was produced he felt there were alternative avenues to be explored for those characters, and proceeded to write three companion pieces that saw what happened if things had turned out differently. Tamara Harvey's production brings the four plays together, in what is the premiere stage production of the companion pieces Michael, Japes Too and Missing Dates.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Trafalgar Studios)

A slew of big-name productions are on their way to the West End this spring, starting with James McAvoy as Macbeth. Following the example of Michael Grandage, director Jamie Lloyd has launched his own production company with a residency at a London theatre. They're calling the season Trafalgar Transformed as designer Soutra Gilmour has turned Trafalgar Studio 1 into a traverse, with the first few rows of seating moved onto the stage, which has been raised a few feet. From my usual perspective of the (comparatively) cheap seats at the back this reconfiguration is a success - the stadium seating means sightlines have always been good, but coupled with the small stage make the view from the gods feel very disconnected. Bringing the stage a bit closer and surrounding it with audience gives a bit more of a sense of intimacy to a sometimes soulless space.

Theatre review: Scenes from an Execution

For the second week in a row, I arrive at the National Theatre to see a show whose reputation precedes it, and not necessarily in a good way: During its preview period, Scenes from an Execution become notorious for the amount of people cutting their losses at the interval, and inspired newspaper articles about the rights and wrongs of leaving a show early. Writer Howard Barker is known for saying he doesn't think theatre should be an enjoyable experience, so I guess you could call it a success that so many people decided grabbing another drink/watching the Bake-Off/going home for a wank was a better use of their time than staying for Act II. But Barker's attitude about art having to provide something other than what its audience is necessarily looking for is also thematically at the heart of this play, the first of his ever to be staged by the National (their failure to do so until now has also, apparently, been a regular bone of contention with him.)

Theatre review: Antigone

At Southwark Playhouse last year, Tom Littler's Middle East-set Antigone became unexpectedly topical when it coincided with the death of Osama bin Laden, and the unceremonious disposal of his body. This year, Polly Findlay's production at the National very consciously exploits the parallels, opening with a tableau that recreates the famous photo of President Obama and his staff watching the raid unfold. This, then, is Antigone as The West Wing, Soutra Gilmour's set creating the hectic offices of Government, as well as the back corridors where we first find Jodie Whittaker's Antigone and her sister Ismene (Annabel Scholey) discussing in hushed tones what's to be done with the remains of their brother Polyneices: Having led an army against his native Thebes, the new King Creon has decreed that his body is to be left unburied and unmourned as a warning to others. If Antigone defies her uncle's orders and buries her brother, the penalty is death. If she doesn't, she's disobeying the gods themselves.