Theatre review: Duncton Wood

There's a number of new British musicals popping up on the fringe at the moment, and first for me is what will hopefully be the oddest offering, an adaptation of William Horwood's first novel Duncton Wood, about violent gangs of moles fighting over territory in and around the titular wood. I wouldn't want to try and be more specific than that about the story, as exactly what's going on is pretty much impossible to follow. Certainly the central couple are Bracken (Josh Little) and Rebecca (Amelia-Rose Morgan,) who don't actually meet until quite late in the show and both shag other people (/moles) but they do smell each other's scent around the wood often and are sure they're destined to be together. But Rebecca's father Mandrake (Anthony Cable) is the tyrannical leader of the mole gang. I think they're actually the Duncton Moles, which technically means Bracken is on their side, but I think it's the fact that he worships a magic stone that looks like a ball of string that makes him unpopular with Mandrake.

Theatre review: Pacific Overtures

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: This was the second public performance.

Famous as one of Stephen Sondheim's most complex and ambitious (trans: unpopular) works, Pacific Overtures follows a turning point in the history of Japan. Having got rid of the Dutch a couple of centuries earlier, the Japanese have practically turned isolationism into a religion: Leaving the country is illegal, but worse would be for a foreigner to set foot on Japanese soil, which would be viewed as something close to sacrilege. But by 1853 preserving this sanctity is looking less and less possible, as American ships arrive, demanding to deliver a letter from the President. With the Emperor still a child, and the shōgun an incompetent, it's left to low-ranking samurai Kayama (Oli Reynolds) and English-speaking fisherman Majiro (Emanuel Alba) to try and come up with a solution.

Theatre review: The Fix

Director Michael Strassen seems to be drawn to musicals about American politics: After killing off a bunch of US Presidents in Assassins a couple of years ago, he returns to the Union to tell the story of a man groomed all his life for high office in The Fix. When an apparently sure-thing Presidential candidate in the early 1960s has an erotic asphyxiation mishap, his widow Violet (Liz May Brice) decides that if she can't be the wife of the President she'll be his mother, and focuses on feckless, big-haired son Cal (Louis Maskell.) With the aid of Cal's wheelchair-bound uncle Grahame (Miles Western) doing spin-doctor duties, the perfect career trajectory to the White House is planned. But Cal proves harder to harder to control than expected: His womanising, cocaine addiction and association with a local mob boss can be easily dealt with, but his tendency to be honest at unexpected moments is another problem altogether.