Theatre review: "Daddy" A Melodrama

It's hard enough trying to keep up with everything going on in London theatre without adding Broadway to the mix, but even so I can't help but know that Slave Play was causing a stir in New York before Covid. So far I haven't heard any suggestion of it making the transatlantic trip but Jeremy O. Harris' earlier play "Daddy" A Melodrama has, after a lockdown delay of its own, now landed at the Almeida complete with its original creative team. Franklin (Terique Jarrett) is a young, gay black artist who moved to California a couple of years ago to pursue his career. His collections of doll versions of himself are slowly building a following, and while he's not quite got to the stage of making big money from his creations yet, he's got an enthusiastic supporter in gallerist Alessia (Jenny Rainsford,) who's about to host his first high-profile exhibition. A few weeks before it opens, he meets wealthy, white, fifty-something Andre (Claes Bang.)

Theatre review: Wildefire

Constable Gail Wilde (Lorraine Stanley) was a minor character in a Roy Williams play, who the playwright decided he'd like to see as the central figure in her own right. The result is Wildefire, which premieres in the main house as part of Hampstead's police-themed season that also includes State Red Downstairs. Patrolling a quiet town isn't quite fulfilling enough for Wilde, who at the start of the play transfers to the Metropolitan Police. With stories of her grandfather making a real difference on the same beat, she stays cheerfully optimistic in the face of cynicism from her partner Spence (Ricky Champ,) who keeps an unauthorised informant (Eric Kofi Abrefa) out of his own pocket, and isn't above outbreaks of violence. When things become personal, though, Wilde finds that the pressure soon leads her to even greater extremes than Spence.

theatre review: nut

playwright, director and enemy of uppercase letters debbie tucker green has shown an ability to write in different styles in those plays of hers i've seen so far. nut, which premieres at the national theatre's shed, displays a similar variety in its three short acts. the story centres on elayne (nadine marshall,) a woman who rarely leaves her flat, which is untidy and filled with the lists she compulsively makes. we meet her and her friends aimee (sophie stanton) and devon (anthony welsh) as they have a funny rhetorical conversation about planning their own funerals. but the naturalistic dialogue can't disguise forever the fact that there's something slightly off, a pinteresque undertone of surreal menace to their conversation. aimee is increasingly insistent that, while she will die peacefully in her sleep some day, elayne will be the first to die, and violently. devon goes further, dropping hints that elayne should kill herself or at least self-harm; he's also strangely hostile to a young boy (tobi adetunji, zac fitzgerald or jayden fowora-knight) who joins them, singing tunelessly.