Theatre review: A Tupperware of Ashes

The Dorfman's about to go dark for a while for another refurb, but it bows out for now in style with a show reminiscent of The Father, both in subject matter and in being something I was very glad to catch, but wouldn't want to put myself through again in a hurry. In Tanika Gupta's A Tupperware of Ashes Meera Syal plays Queenie, a name whose significance is obscure to start with, but which becomes clearer as Gupta gives us a loose reimagining of King Lear, charting the tragic mental breakdown of an independent, successful British-Bengali woman. Queenie is a chef with her own, recently Michelin-starred restaurant, although some of the things we learn about her success early on in the play come into question soon after: Her behaviour has started to change quite a lot, and her doctor daughter Kamala's (Natalie Dew) worst suspicions are confirmed when she sends her off for tests.

Theatre review: Venice Preserved

I've seen Venice Preserved once before, but as that particular production was an incoherent car crash that was 50% sales presentation for a property development and 50% people desperately shouting "immersive!" at you while asking for money for four hours, it's probably easiest all round to just treat Thomas Otway's Restoration thriller as completely new to me. Prasanna Puwanarajah directs a mercifully coherent production, although how much sense the plot itself makes remains up for debate. Jaffeir (Michael Grady-Hall) is recruited by his best friend Pierre (Stephen Fewell) to join a bloody rebellion against the corrupt ruling class of Venice; both swear loyalty to the cause, but each also has a personal vendetta against some member of the senate which is the real clincher in wanting to bring them down. In Jaffeir's case, it's his senator father-in-law Priuli (Les Dennis,) who disapproved of the marriage and went out of his way to punish him for it.