Radio review: Love and Information

Back to my occasional reviews of radio adaptations of stage work, where BBC Radio 3's recent production of Love and Information is the first audio adaptation, and 12 years seems like a surprisingly long time to wait to give it that treatment: After all, Caryl Churchill's 2012 play is an experiment in form that requires all kinds of resources for a live revival, that are a lot easier to get around on radio, where sketch shows are common. And that's essentially the format Churchill used for this play, whose cast very quickly run their way through more than a hundred characters in over fifty scenes that are rarely as long as two minutes, and can be as short as a single sneeze. As an audience member, one advantage this has is that I was able to focus entirely on the scenes and not the staging - I remember the original production at the Royal Court as being brilliant, but it was impossible not to be slightly distracted by the impressively slick scene changes.

Theatre review: The Effect

Easily one of the best plays of the 2010s, Lucy Prebble's The Effect returns to the National Theatre where it premiered, but it swaps the studio theatre for the Lyttelton, and the theatrical richness and tricksiness of Rupert Goold for Jamie Lloyd's simultaneously stripped-back yet brash style. Lloyd brings a design coup, as Soutra Gilmour reconfigures the Stalls and stage to make a traverse, putting the quartet of characters under the kind of intense clinical scrutiny their minds and bodies are subject to in the story. In a large medical complex - the ruins of an old mental asylum are still on the grounds - a group of volunteers take part in a medical trial. Connie (Taylor Russell) and Tristan (Paapa Essiedu) flirt with each other from the get-go, but as their time isolated from the outside world goes on, they seem to be falling violently in love with each other for real.

Theatre review: Manor

The world may be far from out of the pandemic woods yet, but in some parts of the theatrical landscape nature is healing: After a few months' honeymoon period, the papers have gone back to announcing that Rufus Norris has scheduled a show that will single-handedly bring down the National Theatre (a feat even Damned by Despair couldn't manage, calm down.*) The latest recipient of this dubious honour is Manor, Moira Buffini's new topical - perhaps too broadly topical - play that sets a political crisis against the backdrop of the climate crisis. Diana (Nancy Carroll) is the heir to a crumbling manor house somewhere near the coast, where she lives with her ageing rocker husband Pete (Owen McDonnell) and their daughter Isis (Liadán Dunlea). As a catastrophic storm destroys the area and threatens to flood the grounds, a number of unexpected guests seek shelter - not great timing, as Diana's just accidentally pushed Pete down the stairs during an argument, killing him.

Theatre review: Cyrano de Bergerac

“They set in in the 17th century, gave him a long nose, maybe made it a bit funnier... but for the British, Bergerac will always be John Nettles.”

Jamie Lloyd is a director known for being able to get big names on stage, rather than one who has an unofficial company of actors he keeps working with; but one regular collaborator is James McAvoy, who takes the lead as Lloyd launches his latest West End residency, this time a selection of eyewateringly-priced international classics at the Playhouse. And if there's any doubt that this opening salvo is going for a stripped-back style, the one thing that everyone automatically associates with Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac doesn't make an appearance on McAvoy's face. In 1640 Paris, soldier Cyrano is notorious for three things: One is his proficiency with a sword, which sees him able to take out multiple assailants on his own, and also means he can take brutal revenge on anyone who seems to be making fun of his second notable feature, his unusually large nose. But it’s the third thing that becomes central to the play’s plot, and therefore the only one that Lloyd actually stages in a literal way.

Theatre review: The Hunt

From the first Rupert Goold productions I saw I've associated the director with the ability to put the nightmarish on stage (in a good way,) and it's not a knack he's lost as his latest Almeida show plays out like a horror film, innocuous beginnings building to hair-raising tension. But there's no serial killers or supernatural elements to The Hunt, David Farr's adaptation of a Danish film by Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm. Instead there's two very modern fears at play, the one of monsters in our midst and the other of being falsely accused of being one of those monsters. Of course my main current image of Denmark is of somewhere almost empty, apart from the odd person suddenly keeling over dead or running around yelling "Rasmuuuuuuuuuuus!" and, while the town where the play's set isn't quite that deserted, it's clearly been shrinking in recent years.

Theatre review: White Teeth

A definite case of déjà vu walking into the Kiln, as Tom Piper’s perspective set for the musical White Teeth is reminiscent of Robert Jones’ street for the Young Vic’s Twelfth Night. Except instead of Notting Hill this is set right outside the theatre’s doors in Kilburn High Road; in fact I can think of no reason other than scheduling clashes for this not being the opening show of the renamed theatre’s season, given how much fuss has been made about the Kiln tying into the local community and its identity. Zadie Smith’s novel, adapted here by Stephen Sharkey with music by Paul Englishby, is something of a twisted love letter to Kilburn and its multicultural community with all its clashes and contradictions, through a convoluted intergenerational family epic. It’s predominantly the story of Irie (Ayesha Antoine) growing up in the 1970s and ‘80s alongside identical twins Millat (Assad Zaman) and Magid (Sid Sagar.)

Theatre review: Instructions for Correct Assembly

Thomas Eccleshare isn’t a playwright afraid of a high concept, or of asking his creatives for the impossible, whether it’s nature fighting back against urbanisation in a very literal way, or a Mediaeval poem turned into a live comic book. Instructions for Correct Assembly, his first play for the Royal Court’s main stage, is no different, taking the idea of the IKEA flat-pack and wondering what we could be building out of it next. Harry (Mark Bonnar) and Max’s (Jane Horrocks) son Nick (Brian Vernel) died some months ago after years of drug addiction. But the couple have found a project to help them move on with their lives, and are excited to assemble their new son Jån (also Vernel,) who’s been ordered from a generic model (“white and polite”) but can be programmed to suit their own specifications. Through a series of comic scenes they iron out the imperfections, but as time goes on they feel the need to programme some grey areas back in.

Theatre review: The Seagull

Despite the bleak turn it takes in its final act, The Seagull makes by far the best case for Chekhov’s claim that many of his plays are comedies, and Sean Holmes’ production makes a particularly good example: We laugh at the characters’ flaws and vanities, before the same things turn around and destroy them. Irina (Lesley Sharp) is a famous actress on one of her rare visits back to her childhood home, a working farm whose running she’s passed over entirely to her brother Peter (Nicolas Tennant) and his staff. Still living there is her son Konstantin (Brian Vernel,) an aspiring writer who, in the opening act, is preparing to premiere a surreal new piece of theatre he’s written to family and friends. It stars his neighbour Nina (Adelayo Adedayo,) whom he’s desperately in love with, so a lot rides for him on the performance going well – but his mother has other ideas.

Theatre review: The House That Will Not Stand

Carrying distinct echoes of The House of Bernarda Alba, Marcus Gardley's tragicomedy The House That Will Not Stand is, thankfully, possessed of a much lighter touch despite taking on issues every bit as troubling as Lorca. The setting is New Orleans in 1836, a place and time in American history when black rights - for a select few - were a reality, but one that was already being threatened by new laws. Most of the characters are "free colored women," but as Gardley's play explores, freedom may be illusory, just as there's more than one form of slavery. As the play starts, a wealthy white Louisiana man, Lazare (Paul Shelley,) has just died. Although he had a wife, he actually lived with his black mistress Beartrice (Martina Laird) and their daughters. As things stand, Beartrice is due to inherit the house, but she needs to do so quickly before the law changes. Meanwhile her daughters want to be allowed out of mourning to go to a ball and capture white men of their own before it's too late.

Theatre review: I Know How I Feel About Eve

After shows lasting 3 hours 10 minutes on Friday and 3 hours 15 minutes on Saturday, a play that gets its themes across, in its understated way, in just over an hour is a welcome change. Jo (Kirsty Bushell) and Alex (Christopher Harper) are a couple whose marriage is suffering in the wake of a personal tragedy. Alex, a novelist, is trying to get back to work and back to normal, but is struggling with his current book. Jo, a barrister on extended leave, spends her mornings jogging but in the rest of her life seems to have lost all energy, she's unwilling or unable to shop for food and has decided that toast and gin are all the sustenance anyone needs. The two bicker and snap at each other, Jo seems repulsed by the very idea of Alex making a sexual advance, but the two also seem determined to keep their marriage going.