Theatre review: The End of History...

Ten years ago Jack Thorne set an entire play in the wee small hours of the 2nd May 1997, and with his latest play's opening scene taking place about six months after that date it's clear he's not yet done interrogating what the hope and optimism of Tony Blair's first victory actually ever amounted to. Blair is much more of a background noise than a central theme in The End of History..., a family drama spanning twenty years that often has the feel of a sitcom that's gone unusually dark. Sal (Future Dame Lesley Sharp) and David (David Morrissey) are a kind of embarrassing sitcom mum and dad (right down to the clichéd trope of the mum who's a terrible cook,) with the main source of embarrassment being their commitment to their left-wing beliefs and causes, their enthusiasm for which has never dulled.

Theatre review: Pinocchio

Going by the last couple of offerings, Rufus Norris' vision for Christmas family shows at the National involves the most familiar stories being given unfamiliar stagings. If I wasn't really sold on a vision of Peter Pan as "quite looking forward to getting his bus pass," this year's interpretation of Pinocchio as "Joe Idris-Roberts with his nips out" is perhaps a more likely fit to my interests. And the story itself, a pretty dark one at heart and much less frequently staged, is closer to my liking of the more gothic side of children's stories. Adaptor Dennis Kelly and director John Tiffany certainly seem to agree, with a disorientating production: This saw me return to the theatre after a few days of being too ill to go out and having to miss some shows I was really keen on, and perhaps there could be no better fit when I'm still feeling a bit wobbly, as Pinocchio has always had a touch of the fever-dream to it.

Theatre review: Road

In a rare instance of the Royal Court revisiting a past work, John Tiffany directs a 30th anniversary production of Road, Jim Cartwright’s slice of life in an unnamed Lancashire town. It seems a rather pointed revival of a play which comes down hard on Thatcher’s Britain, as despite the – nostalgic and funny by turns – period trappings it still feels relevant, its characters going out to get drunk and try to pull, covering up their desperation at the dead end their lives are in. Some have been led to unusual extremes, like Mike Noble’s Skin-Lad, a Buddhist skinhead, or Joey (Shane Zaza) and Clare (Faye Marsay,) dying in bed on hunger strike over something they can’t quite articulate. Most have more familiar stories of trying to cope though, and unemployed ex-sailor Scullery (Lemn Sissay) offers to be the audience’s tour guide over one typical Saturday night from dusk to dawn.

Theatre review: The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams' most overtly autobiographical play is probably my favourite, which is just as well as it's also the one I've seen most often - John Tiffany's production of The Glass Menagerie is my fourth, and comes to London after acclaimed runs in New York and Edinburgh. Tom (Michael Esper) is the narrator, unreliable by his own admission, of a memory from his youth in St Louis living with his mother and sister, his father having long sonce absconded. His sister Laura (Kate O'Flynn) has a slight limp, and in her teens was ill with pleurisy for a long time, and both have been magnified in her mind - she became shy to the point that it's now a crippling mental illness. At the play's opening, their mother Amanda (Cherry Jones) discovers that Laura has been lying about going to a typing course for the last few weeks - she had a panic attack after a couple of days and dropped out.

Theatre review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Part Two

Tonight it's Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Part Two, and as with Part One of J.K Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany's story I'm going to to do a review with some degree of spoilers, a little bit spoilery for plot, a bit more so for characters and staging, as a record of my reaction for myself if nothing else. So read on if you've seen the plays already or are involved in the production and already know everything; or, I guess, if you're absolutely sure you have no intention of ever seeing it either at the Palace or when it eventually opens on Broadway and, probably, territories all around the world. If you have tickets, are planning on going to see it or there's any chance you might some day, #KeepTheSecrets and stop reading after this paragraph.

Theatre review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Part One

Shows are always plugging themselves as "the theatrical event of the year"- most recently Sunset Boulevard attempted the line, rather foolishly as if there's ever been a year when that title has had no contest, this is it: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two were a phenomenon as soon as tickets went on sale, and now the show's actually opened the response has actually lived up to expectations. Playwright Jack Thorne is the first writer J.K. Rowling has entrusted to script an entirely new, canonical Harry Potter story, although she and director John Tiffany collaborated with Thorne on putting the story together. I chose to see this over consecutive nights so will review the parts separately too, although reviewing a show where it's important to #KeepTheSecrets is a tricky business. Ultimately this blog is a record for myself as well as reviews for others, so I will be giving it a go - so here's a little spoiler disclaimer:

After the text cut, expect some spoilers - I'll be mentioning some characters and their actors, and the general starting point of the plot, but I won't give away all the twists. Still, if you have any intention of seeing this show, I'd say - spoilering this review itself - I loved it, now don't read below the cut. Even if you won't be seeing it until 2017 or even until it makes it to Broadway, come back and read what I thought then - I can wait.

Theatre review: The Twits

With two Roald Dahl adaptations still doing good business in the West End, the Royal Court might look like it's piggybacking its way to a family hit, but The Twits isn't quite like Matilda, and certainly not like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Like those shows, it has a somewhat surprising choice of playwright for the adaptation - Enda Walsh this time - but unlike those it can't rely on the audience's familiarity with the plot: The Twits is closer to a short story than a novella, so Dahl's original story is used up in about 15 minutes at the start and end of the stage version. In between, Walsh and director John Tiffany are free to make up their own new version of the story - perhaps that's why it's being promoted as a "mischievous adaptation" - which to me at least felt very much in the spirit of Dahl. Mr and Mrs Twit (Jason Watkins and Monica Dolan) are a horrible couple who hate bathing, children, other people in general, and most of all each other.

Theatre review: Hope

The Royal Court's Christmas shows tend not to be like other theatres' Christmas shows, and while for the second year running the creative team is writer Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany, this year's offering makes vampires seem positively festive in comparison. Hope follows the year 2014 in the life of the Labour council of an unnamed, working class town (everyone in the cast keeps their own accent, so it could be pretty much anywhere.) The actual business of running the town doesn't get a look-in though, as the Government's austerity measures have seen their budget slashed by £22 million a year, and everyone's primary concern is to determine which essential services have to be cut. Thorne's play identifies Government policy as a cynically genius plan: Slash budgets from the top but leave the details, and all the resulting ill-feeling, to the local, opposition councils.

Theatre review: The Pass

Much as I'd like to approach every show I ever see as a blank slate, some inevitably have more levels of anticipation built up around them than others. The latest stage appearance from Big Favourite Round These Parts Russell Tovey is always bound to be a bit of an event. The news that he'd be playing a gay footballer didn't make it any less exciting. The publicity photos confirming the rumours that he spends most of the play wandering around in his underwear... well, you've read this unholy excuse for a blog, you know where this is going. The good news is that The Pass will disappoint only the most demanding of theatrical perverts. The better news is that John Donnelly's play is a bit of a triumph, equal parts funny and disturbing, which would be memorable even if the cast didn't spend most of it in a state of undress. Although just in case it wasn't clear: The fact that the cast spend most of it in a state of undress is a good thing.

Theatre review: Let The Right One In

A teenage vampire love storyNO WAIT, COME BACK! IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK! Having read John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel and seen the first of the two film adaptations, Let The Right One In feels very familiar to me but it seems not everyone has even heard of it, so may need reassuring that absolutely nothing sparkles. Except maybe some blood in the snow. Instead this is a bleakly Scandinavian but strangely romantic coming-of-age story that takes in vicious bullying, blurred gender identity and an undercurrent of paedophilia. Basically standard Christmas fare for the Royal Court, where Jack Thorne's adaptation comes following its premiere earlier this year for the National Theatre of Scotland. And though the original 1980s Swedish setting remains (with an authenticity that goes all the way to chocolate bars called Plopp) the accents are all Scottish in John Tiffany's atmospheric production.

Theatre review: Death Tax

The main event in the Royal Court's Open Court season is a six-week repertory, in which a company of actors takes on a different play every week, with just one week's rehearsal and one of performances. I missed the opening offering from the new Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone (word on Twitter suggests I didn't miss much) but the second play in the series is directed by her most trusted lieutenant from the National Theatre of Scotland, John Tiffany. Lucas Hnath's Death Tax revolves around money, and how it seems to corrupt your life whether you've got too much of it or not enough. Set in a Florida nursing home, much of it centres on Tina (Natasha Gordon,) a nurse who finds herself tempted when a wealthy, elderly resident accuses her of trying to speed up her death - and offers her a much-needed incentive not to.

Theatre review: Once

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: Press Night for Once is tomorrow night.

Has the latest Broadway musical import timed its arrival in the West End as well as it could have? A multiple Tony-winning hit in New York, where it's still running, Once may have it all to do to get noticed above the sound of The Book of Mormon. But perhaps the cult fanbase of John Carney's original movie will give Enda Walsh's adaptation a push - tonight's Monday preview was pretty packed (although of course I can't tell how many in the audience had paid full price.) John Tiffany brings to the stage an Irish Guy (Declan Bennett,) a vacuum cleaner repairman and busker who's recently had his heart broken and is ready to ditch his musical dreams when he meets a Girl (Zrinka Cvitešić.) A Czech whose husband returned home, leaving her in Dublin with her family and young daughter, the Girl falls for the Guy's music and convinces him to stick with it, helping him build up a band out of friends and relatives so he can record a demo CD.