Henry V

Theatre Delicatessen, 35 Marylebone High Street

28 May

 

Marylebone is bright and gleaming

on a long, hot evening in May,

and 35 is just another number, glass

and chrome, until inside you find your way

into a stranger city;

darker, down the stairs

into a bunker, beds of sand bags,

lines of benches

and a long mess table,

pictures and playing cards.

Here is the sound of shells

and men shouting, diving for cover,

screaming, gunfire, rain.

Here is laughter and music,

brawling and beer, flowers

and a case of tennis balls.

Here again are old friends and old stories,

old men and young,

young men willing their way

into a war. And here we watch

as though this thing is theatre,

although at times it feels like something else,

something with light and sound

that ring like clarity, unlooked-for thoughts

and moments of sudden sense.

There is a power here in shared experience,

a deeper thing than greed and lust

and loss; here is mankind’s belief

in his incarnate right, so strong

it won’t admit anything else. 

 

Henry V will run at Theatre Delicatessen until 30 June

http://theatre-delicatessen.makemoredigital.com/?page_id=1404 

The Sunshine Boys

Savoy Theatre

17 May

Here is a show that shuffles on

and takes its time getting around to nothing much.

It hangs on laughs, but they are sad and few;

frankly it should have stayed in 1972.

Here are two veterans of Vaudeville

who might, or might not, but always inevitably will

revive their old routine, cast back their minds

and fumble foolishly around with props and lines.

It’s not all bad: Danny DeVito’s drawl

is pure New York and sweet as hot coffee and bagels

on a cold morning; I love his ‘small’ apartment,

stripy pyjamas and penchant for Variety, but

this play does not hang on one character alone

and there's no punch or powder in the rest of it.

It’s flat as sugar substitute, or decaff: it looks right,   

but there’s no flavour, no sparkle, no bite.

Sunshine Boys is playing at the Savoy Theatre until 28 July

http://www.sunshineboystheplay.com/

Long Day's Journey into Night

Apollo Theatre

7 May

 

Here is a quiet, slow parade

of one long day;

a long, extraordinary journey

into night.

The room is treacle-coloured wood

and whisky light

imbued with silence

and the ebb of hope.

Here are the threads of stories

strange and sad,

and others rainbow-bright

with long-remembered seams of happiness.

One long, tall, tragic night of lingering

and listening in the dark,  

of drinking, playing cards

and waiting for the fog to clear

and the woman overhead to stop herself

and go at last to bed. 

One lovely moment when we talk about acting,

and a few upon a table top.

There is much here on appearances

and other things

you cannot talk about.

Much patting of hair and changing of coats,

coughing and silence.

There is no real looking

for the glasses she has lost,

and she has lost her sight

in other ways now too.

But it does not leave me sad.

It is not a portent,

but a sight of what we must not. 

Long Day's Journey into Night plays at the Apollo Theatre until 18 August

http://www.nimaxtheatres.com/apollo-theatre/long_days_journey_into_night

Babel

Caledonian Park

8 May

Walking slowly, as instructed,

we enter the park

and take a path

between a hundred or so strange, still figures

in the trees, all in white

and staring, sleeping, ironing

or sitting with a piano

or a trumpet in the green

and playing soft, sweet, outdoor music.

It gets colder

and we step into a central space,

a field in a park, circled with tents

and bandstands.

It gets muddier and colder;

hands in pockets,

quite like a winter festival

where no one knows

quite what they ought to do.

We walk about a bit

and join in here and there:

knitting, stick house building,

drinking tea.

We help twist strips of hessian

onto a fire stick. We eat sweets

and dance in the mud to jazz.

I wish I had worn wellies.

Then, on the tower, it starts.

First, an older man, white-clad,

God-like, Einstein-like,

in a white light, speaks like a storyteller.

He says this is it. Here is the tower.

A symbol (of what?).

The lighting is lovely:

eyes in the clock face,

stairs in the tower, a dog barking,

a man rescued.

We are in darkness now, surrounded.

Is everyone an actor, suddenly?

And then a swarm of people holding boxes,

little houses all aglow with torches,

tea lights. The prettiest new township

moving in. Now there is dancing,

singing, applause. It is over, and we stream

towards the gates. We won, but I need to find out

what it was all supposed to mean.

Babel runs until 20 May at Caledonian Park, London

http://www.babellondon.com/ 

Horrible Histories, Barmy Britain

Garrick Theatre

6 May

Overflowing with blood, guts and gore
are these horrible histories of yore;
they are funny and grim
told with vigour and vim
and there's singing and dancing galore.

They do much with a hamper of coats
and a washing line hung with old sheets,
and for only two actors
there are so many characters
it’s hard to keep up with it all!

It gets dark as a graveyard at night

and might give little children a fright

with its stories of murder

and wrath and revenge,

it is dripping with ghoulish delight.

 

Barmy Britain is now playing at the Garrick Theatre, London

http://www.barmybritain.com/

Love, Love, Love

Royal Court Theatre

05 May 2012

Love is a mixed up thing by the end of this.

A selfish thing that drinks too much

and prides itself on always being right,

always honest but never tactful,

never caring. Careless, you might think.

To begin with, love is all about appearances.

Youthful and fresh. High as a kite

and free to sleep all night in the park beneath a tree.

Change is in the air they say, and they believe it.

The Beatles are on TV. You can do anything.

Then you notice the cracks, gaping like canyons.

The soundtrack rocks, but doesn’t fill the craters

left by too much being said,

not enough love going round,

too much self-love, self-pity, self-deception.

By the end, I really choked on it.

Fine words, deceits

and small unkindnesses –

sharp as a knife and almost funny,

if they were not so like real life.

There is a lot on age

and really it is beautifully played

from groovy ’60s kids to hipster retirees

floating about with a subtle limp, bad hip,

playing at gardening  in yoga white.

There is a lot of harsh judgement cast,

but no real question marks

or glimpses of a rosy hope around the corner.

The jokes are sharp, and there at last

there is no comfort, no last word of hope.

Love, Love, Love plays until 9 June at the Royal Court Theatre, London

http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/

A Christmas Carol

Leicester Square Theatre

December 2011

 

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 played at the Leicester Square Theatre, and at the Dickens House Museum, in December 2011
http://dominicgerrard.co.uk/ 

Don Giovanni

Heaven

30 April 2012

From the start, this is like nothing else.

A basically-naked man sells us a programme

for a pound. The loos smell like stale sick.

The bar is sweat heaven.

Don is blonde and chisel-jawed,

louche in a sharp ‘80s suit,

coming on to every man in sight, winking

and smirking for all it could ever be worth.

He’s a charmer, but the charm is wearing thin.

His conquests are cottoning on

and after all you can’t help knowing

this is nearly the end of him.

It’s all a heady mix of music, club and coke,

exotic dancers in their gold spangly nothings,

chip shop humour

and an underlying stale sense of sadness.

But the best part is that this is London,

Soho sleaze and tawdry sex shop signs,

a Phantom of the Opera poster shredded by a blast of smoke

and the arrival of that last, unlikely ghost.

This is something more than gulping pills

and pink champagne

drunk through a sad straw

at the end of an awful night;

here pain, ambition, fear

burn holes where they fall,

and run with glee

through the production’s veins.

 

Don Giovanni ran at Heaven nightclub, London, in April 2012
http://www.dongiovannitheopera.com/

The Merchant of Venice

Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch

23 April 2012

Shylock is bear-like,

all beard and smile,

but holding his own

with intractable guile.

Nubile Portia is nymph-like

and cool,

a sweet, spoiled heiress

who won’t bear a fool;

but she wins as the doctor

in smart, sober suit,

and is more than a match

for the men in the court.

There’s a lovely, soft moment

of quiet commune,

in the gardens at Belmont

beneath a full moon,

and the music that plays there

is haunting and sweet,

giving pause to a play

that is run off its feet.

The boys are all daring

in ‘80s excess,

they are party-prepared

and dressed up to impress.

The caskets are brilliant,

a moment of fun

to sum up a production

that won’t be undone,

though it struggles with modern day theory

and thought,

yet it pulls it off gamely

with singing and sport.

Josie Taylor as Portia, Matt Devitt as Shylock

The Merchant of Venice plays until 12 May at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch

 www.queens-theatre.co.uk/