Theatre review: Here You Come Again

Dolly Parton is hardly a stranger to writing entire new musicals of her own, but her extensive back catalogue means she'll always be an attractive prospect for the jukebox musical treatment as well. Bruce Vilanch, Gabriel Barre and Tricia Paoluccio's Here You Come Again has already had successful runs in the US, and for its first UK national tour it also gets a rewrite from Jonathan Harvey to provide a new setting and some gags that'll make more sense to British audiences. For tonight's performance on the Richmond leg of the tour it also gets a seemingly last-minute change of gender as Kevin, a middle-aged gay man, has been changed to Kerry, a middle-aged lesbian, although to be fair that doesn't make it any less likely that the lead will be a huge Dolly Parton fan. Charlotte Yorke, who usually understudies Dolly, plays Kerry, a wannabe standup comedian whose girlfriend has dumped her in the middle of the Covid lockdown in summer 2020.

Theatre review: Beautiful Thing

Not that I've been at this for a while or anything, but you can read a review of the 20th anniversary production of Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing on this blog, and now here's the 30th anniversary one, and a fresh look at the play that's in essence one that knows the script's strengths and plays to them. The fresh look is in the casting, which director Anthony Simpson-Pike wanted to allow young gay black kids to see themselves reflected in the characters. The only change I noticed in the script was a quick reference where Sandra asks Jamie if he's being bullied racially. Other than that the story's still as written, and very much in the early Nineties - in fairness I'm not sure how you could try to update jokes about Wincey Willis, let alone the specific point of gay history that inspired Harvey to write this rainbow-tinted play.

Theatre review: Mother Goose (Duke of York's & tour)

I haven't regularly been to Christmas pantomime since Tom Wells stopped writing the Lyric Hammersmith one, but Ian McKellen returning to the role of Dame at the age of 83 has to be something worth catching, and anyway I never saw his Twankey. This time it's as Mother Goose, with Jonathan Harvey writing and Cal McCrystal directing, and with McKellen's commitment to touring it's not even technically a Christmas event - by the time it gets to its last couple of stops it'll be an Easter outing. Another initial selling point was Mel Giedroyc as the goose Cilla Quack, but she had to drop out for personal reasons and Anna-Jane Casey turned out to be very much available to replace her. McKellen's Mother Goose and her husband Vic (John Bishop) run an animal sanctuary in the building that used to house defunct department store Debenhams before 12 years of Conservative government ruined the economy (I'm not editorialising, that's the script.)

Stage-to-screen review: Hushabye Mountain

In the 1980s and '90s there was a whole raft of gay plays dealing - albeit sometimes with charm and humour, like Angels in America or My Night With Reg - with the bleak reality of living through the AIDS pandemic. In more recent years there have been new approaches to the subject, whether it be assessing the legacy of a lost generation like The Inheritance, or seeing what the disease means to younger gay men like Undetectable, Jumpers for Goalposts, or the recent Cruise. But Jonathan Harvey's Hushabye Mountain dates from 1999, and it consciously attempts to deal with an uncertain period of hope somewhere in between the two: AIDS still dominates gay men's lives and people are being lost to it, but AZT trials are promising a real hope of successful treatment. It's no longer an automatic death sentence but for Danny (Nathan McMullen,) currently in a celestial waiting room somewhere outside the Pearly Gates, it's come just a little bit too late.

Theatre review: Closer to Heaven

Snatching Romeo & Juliet's crown as the most nipple-thrusting show in Southwark, Closer to Heaven is the latest in the Union's attempts to turn West End flops into fringe hits. This one certainly seems to have done the trick, the Jonathan Harvey / Pet Shop Boys musical sold out long before it had even opened. Recent "Irish" arrival Straight Dave (Jared Thompson) is so called because he really is straight, but he does seem a bit insecure in his sexuality, possibly because of all those men he turns out to have slept with. He tries to suppress this side of himself in the most masculine job he can think of, as a go-go dancer in a gay club, while dating Shell (Amy Matthews) daughter of club owner Vic (Craig Berry.) Vic is variously a heavy drug user or violently opposed to them depending on the scene, which makes for a tricky relationship with resident rough trade and drug dealer Mile End Lee (Connor Brabyn - I see the project to clone Ryan Phillippe has been successful.) Straight Dave visibly drools any time he sees Lee, then is confused when people ask him if he's gay.

Theatre review: Beautiful Thing

Although Jonathan Harvey's TV writing career continues to be successful, none of his stage plays has ever matched the popularity of his debut, Beautiful Thing, which turns 20 years old this year. To mark the anniversary Harvey's lifted a self-imposed ban on revivals to allow Nikolai Foster's production which runs at the Arts prior to a limited UK tour. A piece of gay theatre groundbreaking both in the optimistic matter-of-factness with which it approaches its love story, and in the mainstream appeal it achieves, it premiered at a time when Section 28 was still in effect and AIDS remained a hot topic closely associated with the gay community. As such, it was a breath of fresh air, political in its very refusal to acknowledge politics. Harvey's script hasn't been updated, so the action still takes place in 1993 with many a pop-culture reference of the time. But the romance of two 15-year-old boys on a Thamesmead estate, and the witty characters surrounding them, ensures Beautiful Thing has kept its appeal.