Theatre review: A Passage to India

simple8’s first show on the Park Theatre’s main stage was a bit of a disappointment, but for their second visit Simon Dormandy has struck more fertile ground with his adaptation of E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India. The story’s opening statement “one cannot be friends with the English” is challenged by Asif Khan’s Dr. Aziz, whose job puts him in the middle of two factions of the English in Chandrapur during the height of the Raj, represented by two young men who’ve embraced very different approaches to India and its people: Edward Killingback (Yeah!) Them Motherfuckers Don’t Know How To Act (Yeah!) plays Ronny, the new Magistrate who’s quickly embraced the prevailing attitude that India is there to be governed, its people there to serve. Schoolteacher Cyril Fielding (Richard Goulding) is another recent arrival, who firmly believes India is its people and wants to get to know them.

Theatre review: Luce

What starts as a look at modern-day paranoia around terrorism turns into a sometimes sinister drama about communication and how well we know our own families in JC Lee's Luce. Liberal American couple Amy (Mel Giedroyc) and Peter (Nigel Whitmey) adopted an orphaned seven-year-old boy from an unnamed, war-torn African country. Many of the kids adopted in the scheme were traumatised and had major behavioural problems, but Amy and Peter were lucky - Luce (Martins Imhangbe,) now 17, has been a model son and his school's star pupil. But when one of his teachers, Harriet (Natasha Gordon,) sets her class an essay that asks them to "think outside the box" and imagine themselves as a historical figure at a significant moment, she's disturbed when Luce chooses an obscure 1970s terrorist. She searches his locker and finds dangerous, illegal fireworks, but as Luce has an otherwise unblemished record she doesn't inform the police, instead inviting Amy to discuss what she's discovered.

Theatre review: Waiting for Godot

I know it's pretty much all anyone expects of me, but I really should stop letting my libido dictate my theatregoing. This time the prospect of an attractive actor has let me go against my better judgement and well-documented aversion to Samuel Beckett, and book for the impenetrable dullard's best-known play in which, famously, nothing happens. Twice. The attractive actor, Tom Palmer, is at least very attractive, although as Vladimir in Waiting for Godot he's also lumbered with green teeth, numerous sores and bald patches. Because Simon Dormandy's production veers as far from the path as the draconian Beckett estate will allow (I saw an article that was quite impressed he was allowed to give the actors baseball caps instead of the bowler hats demanded by the script, which gives you an idea of what anyone trying to inject their own personality into a production is dealing with.)

Theatre review: Eldorado

When Wogan ended in 1992, the BBC replaced it with the much-publicised soap Eldorado, set among British ex-pats in Spain. I don't remember much about it except there was a man's naked arse in the first episode, but despite that it became a famous flop. It was taken off-air a year later, ironically just as it was starting to find an audience. Still, it meant Jesse Birdsall was now available to make Bugs, another show considered a bit of a laughing stock, but which actually did quite well for the Beeb in international sales. None of this has anything to do with the play of the same name at the Arcola's main house. Did the soap have some Germans in it? This Eldorado is written by a German - Marius von Mayenburg, whose other plays include The Ugly One, The Stone and Fireface, all of which I've enjoyed.