Slava's Snowshow

Royal Festival Hall

18 December

You could say that this

is yellow clown and green,

snowfall and bubble,

broom and wink and fish,

but that would hardly capture

all the blue and gold,

the shock of water

and of whirling snow,

and at the heart of it

the one old clown, paw-eyed

and shuffling, conjuring up

the stuff of strangest dream.

 

Slava's Snowshow runs at the Royal Festival Hall until 7 January 2013

http://www.slavasnowshow.co.uk/

Father Christmas

Lyric

15 December

On Christmas Eve the sky is cold

and full of whirling snow,

but in the house it’s cosy

and the kitchen all aglow;

and Father Christmas makes it clear

he doesn’t want to go,

but still he packs his sandwiches

and takes the radio;

and out across the world he flies

reindeer and sleigh,

from London houses to igloos

and pyramids along the way,

and leaves a present everywhere

that children play,

and flies back home in time
to go to bed on Christmas day.

Father Christmas runs until 5 January at the Lyric
http://www.lyric.co.uk/whats-on/production/father-christmas/

Midnight's Pumpkin

Battersea Arts Centre

18 December

The magic is in simple things transformed:

the garden shed press-ganged into a coach,

the bathrobe-bedecked mice prancing ahead.

The story fairly drips with blood

and bawdy pantomime, as roaring stepmother

takes on the household; oh but we adored

the ginger cat scooting on wheels,

and the flying toes and tears as the sisters

fought to fit their feet into that tiny shoe...

Midnight's Pumpkin runs until 13 January 2013 at the BAC
http://www.bac.org.uk/whats-on/midnights-pumpkin/

The Architects

Shunt at the Biscuit Factory

4 December

There is no ship! they cry,

as though they have deceived us.

But we knew that. We are

in a biscuit factory in Bermondsey.

We chose a ship of dreams,

a bubble where deceit and innocence,

knowledge and architecture,

rule the roost. What we did not know

was what lurked inside the bull.

Or the chaos of darkness.

The Architects by Shunt
runs at The Biscuit Factory
until 2 February 2013
http://www.shunt.co.uk/thearchitects.html

A Christmas Carol

A year ago I wrote this response to 'A Christmas Carol' - directed by Tim Carroll and performed by Dominic Gerrard. I loved it, and I'm delighted that this production has now returned for a full run at the Waterloo East Theatre, opening tonight!


You were a stranger to me

in your sober coat and high, starched collar.

Scrooge too, scowling and slow, lifting his head

and taking his first breaths

was not the wooden puppet that I knew

but animate: a bitter, sneering man

I would not like to meet.

That little room of yours became a treasure box

of small surprises – music and laughter,

turkey and crackers. I saw the snow

and heard the soft, sweet music

of the violin, conjuring time and place,

the clanking of chains

and murmuring of ghosts.

You conjured up a distant evening,

snowfall on a quiet road,

and then (your favourite, I know)

a moonlit flight over a silver sea.

You carried fear and hope, frost-bitten fingers

and a crackling fireside

till we arrived, inexorably,  at Christmas.

Dickens loved a feast, and you bowed out

with bowls of steaming punch

and plum pudding, music and laughter,

dancing and holly.

You left us warm with hope and charity,

blazing coals and candlelight,

redemption and revelry.

 

'A Christmas Carol' runs at the Waterloo East Theatre from 3 - 15 December

http://www.waterlooeast.co.uk/achristmascarol%20.html

Arab Nights

Soho Theatre
28 November

Shahrazad, bright as a lamp 
and full of fire, nightly tells a story 
for her life: filling the dark 
with dreams and danger, 
love, adventure and the quick 
of golden flickering matchlight.



Arab Nights is on tour until 13 December
http://www.mettatheatre.co.uk/productions/arab-nights/ 

The Cat's Mother

Hoxton Courtyard
22 November

Windowless, we lose our way
where strange reality
meets blacked-out dream;
and stumble headlong into stories
blacker than they seem.

The Cat’s Mother plays at the Courtyard Theatre until 8 December
http://www.thecourtyard.org.uk/whatson/281/the-cats-mother

NSFW

Royal Court
19 November

They do not deal in love -

only in sex and skin, bodily flaws

and imperfections. They are safe

behind their slick demands

and steely walls – the palaces

they build for glamour scum.

NSFW runs at the Royal Court until 24 November

http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/NSFW

Constellations

Duke of York's Theatre
14 November

Beautiful white balloons and galaxies

where couples meet 

as though they were the first

to live this way – each word a choice, 

unseen, but now a fragment

of a new reality. Like bees they fly 

above the city – so intent,

although they cannot see their way

or which of all these worlds

will be their destiny.

Constellations plays at the Duke of York's Theatre until 5 January 2013

http://www.constellationstheplay.com/index-constellations.php

Quills

White Rabbit Cocktail Club

10 November

White-faced and wigged

and robed (or not) in silk 

the Marquis sits,elegant 

in his strange small cell of sin;

his fantasies played out in ink

upon his bed sheets: 

stories that slither 

in the ears of madmen.

 

Quills was presented by Second Skin Theatre, 

17 October - 11 November 2012

http://secondskintheatre.com/pages/

Matilda the Musical

Cambridge Theatre

6 November

They erupt, these children,

naughty little newts and bookworms,

daring to defy both cake and school,

playing with superglue and telling stories

you would weep to hear.

They are as loud and bright

as fireworks onstage, exploding

in the face of huge, mad Trunchbull

and those odious Wormwoods.

I adored it all – 

especially the scooter curtain call.

Matilda the Musical plays at the Cambridge Theatre

http://uk.matildathemusical.com/

The President and the Pakistani

Waterloo East Theatre

3 November

Here, in a square of cardboard boxes

and the lull of leaving, fighting,

losing a dog, dancing and drugs

and 80s breakbeat, Moby Dick

and pained surprise and loss

and new ways out and on and up at last;

here are the seeds of a new president

emerging in a flat in Harlem,

and the rest is history.

 

The President and the Pakistani played at the Waterloo East Theatre, 3 October - 4 November

www.waterlooeast.co.uk/

La Fille a la Mode

Theatre Royal Haymarket
2 November

Follow the girl in red foyer to bar,

up stairs and down,

down labyrinthine passageways

and in and out of plush plum velvet chairs.

They like a drink, these girls

who know too well the price of fame,

perfume and sex.  Their stories linger

like a bitter aftertaste to their success.

 

La Fille a la Mode runs at the Theatre Royal Haymarket until 9 November

www.trh.co.uk/whatson/la-fille-a-la-mode/

Shelf-Life

Theatre Delicatessen

 29 October

Balloon in hand you bowl along

the grimy corridors of birth

and school, uni mistakes

and cheap satiny weddings;

then emerge onto a rooftop

in the rain, above a city gleaming stars,

streetlamps below, and all about you

white balloons are letting go.

 

Shelf-Life runs at Theatre Delicatessen until 10 November

www.theatredelicatessen.co.uk/productions/shelf-life/

Childsplay

Normand Park

13 October

We follow them around the park 

recalling games of children past,

and look how clothes and music changed

and children don’t play all the games 

they used to play – 

or is that what they always say?

Childsplay runs until Sunday 14 October

http://spidtheatre.com/wordpress/productions/whats-on/

The Most Gorgeous Lady Blessington

The Wallace Collection

12 October

Within the house there lies a gallery

of red brocade and gilt; and here she sits,

happy in silk, as in her portrait.

Here she travels time and continent,

recalling friends and creditors, husbands

and lovers, paintings and poetry;

and here her life unfurls and floats away, 

thinner and sadder now, as might a leaf 

from some grand old oak tree.

 

The Most Gorgeous Lady Blessington, by Tangent Theatre 

in association with The Wallace Collection

www.tangenttheatre.co.uk/