Theatre review: The Diary of a Teenage Girl

Southwark Playhouse puts comic books on stage again although we're in significantly darker territory than Usagi Yojimbo with Marielle Heller's The Diary of a Teenage Girl, which adapts Phoebe Gloeckner's graphic novel set in 1976 San Francisco. Minnie (Rona Morison) is 15, the same age her mother Charlotte (Rebecca Trehearn) was when she had her. She might not be adding another teenage pregnancy to the family but her own sexual awakening is far from healthy, as she's been seduced by her mother's seedy boyfriend Monroe (Jamie Wilkes.) It's an ongoing affair and although Minnie hasn't particularly fooled herself that it's love, she's still pretty smitten. With an out-of-her-depth mother fond of a number of recreational drugs, and a seemingly more sensible ex-stepfather, Pascal (Mark Carroll,) who writes her letters encouraging her to keep studying, but has something of a distant, academic interest in her himself, Minnie's left to find her own way.

Theatre review: Show Boat

Before Rodgers and Hammerstein were a thing there was Kern and Hammerstein, Oscar Hammerstein II writing book and lyrics for a number of shows with music by Jerome Kern, although of these only Show Boat is particularly remembered and revived - and indeed credited with creating the 20th century American musical. Daniel Evans' production from Sheffield has been quite rightly praised as it moves to London, although however stellar the production and performances are they can only go so far in papering over the many problematic elements. Starting in the 1880s and spanning approximately 40 years, Show Boat follows Magnolia "Nola" Hawks (Gina Beck) from her time as a teenager on the steamboat run by her father Cap'n Andy (Malcolm Sinclair,) which goes up and down the Mississippi every summer, stopping off at small towns and playing from their repertoire of melodrama. Nola's mother Parthy (Lucy Briers) would never hear of her daughter taking to the stage herself, but when their leading lady is chased out of town for being secretly mixed-race, she gets her chance.

Theatre review: City of Angels

I saw City of Angels in its Edinburgh Fringe premiere in, I think, 1996; all I really remember is being underwhelmed by a show that had been a modest Broadway hit but didn't last long in the West End. Josie Rourke now chooses it as her first musical since taking over the Donmar (and hikes ticket prices accordingly.) With book by Larry Gelbart, music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by David Zippel, it's the story of Stine (Hadley Fraser,) a writer of pulp detective novels, but with a hint of social commentary that's earned him a reputation as something of a literary author. He's now made the move to Hollywood, and having sold the rights to big-shot producer Buddy Fidler (Peter Polycarpou) he's now adapting his first novel into a screenplay. As he writes, we see his story come to life as his gumshoe Stone (Tam Mutu) takes on a dangerous case.

Theatre review: Dogfight

Making a comparatively swift journey of two years from New York to the Elephant and Castle is another musical premiere for Southwark Playhouse. Apparently based on a River Phoenix film, although it's not one I'd ever heard of, Dogfight has a book by Peter Duchan¹ and music & lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. It's 1963, and the "Three Bees" are a trio of marines whose friendship stems from little more than having the same initial. The night before they ship out to Vietnam they have one last blowout planned, starting with a marine tradition: The dogfight is a bet that sees them picking up women, and the winner is the one who brings the ugliest date to the party. Eddie Birdlace (Jamie Muscato) ends up at a diner, where lonely, awkward waitress Rose (Laura Jane Matthewson) seems a likely candidate.