

Listings and reviews (11)

âPeaky Blinders: The Riseâ review
If youâre looking to step onto a near-perfect replica of the set of beloved telly drama âPeaky Blindersâ, then a ticket to âPeaky Blinders: The Riseâ might be what youâre after. But, be warned, this is not the Birmingham-based gangster epic that graces our TV screens. With this Peaky purchase comes a large helping of confusion, a lot of aimless walking and too much inaudible and incoherent dialogue. The Shelby gang has made it to London and is looking to expand its territory from the second city to the capital. Thereâs a party youâre invited to, a few fights that break out around us, and some scenes youâll recognise from the show. The end result pays homage to the much-loved series, but as theatre, there is still quite a way to go. Weâre welcomed into a cold, dank room, handed a wad of cash with no clear instructions, and told about crime boss Tommyâs imminent arrival. In groups, weâre shovelled into side areas to find out our next steps. Actors, attempting Brummie accents to varying degrees of success, come and go with various tales and backstories. Actually hearing them, though, is a problem. The layout and acoustics mean voices echo all around us, drowning out what we are actually supposed to be listening to.  Still, the setting is a handsome one. Designed by Rebecca Browner, thereâs a fully serving recreation of The Garrison pub, saloon bars where you can sip cocktails and a dramatic entrance from Tommy complete with bright lights and impressive shadows that make quite t

âGeorge Takeiâs Allegianceâ review
George Takei was only five years old when the US government forced him, his family, and 120,000 other Japanese Americans into internment. His wartime experiences are the inspiration for what he calls his âlegacy projectâ, the 2015 musical âAllegianceâ, by Marc Acito, Jay Kuo, and Lorenzo Thione. It is a dark and tragic story that needs teaching. But this overlong UK premiere production is limp and lacking in heart. We meet the Kimura family â son Sammy, his older sister Kei, their father Tatsuo and grandfather Ojii-Chan â as they live a broadly happy life on a farm, just as the Second World War is brewing. When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbour, their lives are capsized and the family is forcefully thrown into a ârelocation centreâ in Heart Mountain. Here, the cracks between them begin to show, as they become bitterly divided on where their allegiance should lie. Sammy is prepared to risk his life to fight for his country, while Kei falls in love with the authority-hating Frankie Suzuki in the camp. Cue the big issues of generational and cultural difference, mixed in with all the elements of a big Broadway show. Thereâs some powerful moments. But in the showâs effort to pander to a showtunes-loving crowd, the story loses force. Unremarkable songs are reeled out one after another. A schmaltzy love story between Sammy and a white nurse (Megan Gardiner) at the campsite adds little but a dash of white saviourism to the narrative. Horrific historical moments â notably Hiroshim

âOn the Ropesâ review
There is a moment in âOn the Ropesâ where boxer Vernon Vanriel (Mensah Bediako) stands in the ring, draped in the British flag. This is his life story. Heâs a Londoner, heâs a family man and he is proud. It is a glorious image that makes the British governmentâs later refusal of his right to UK citizenship all the more viscerally horrific. Written by playwright Dougie Blaxland in collaboration with the real Vanriel, âOn the Ropesâ is a play of two halves. First, Vanriel battles to become the British boxing number two, before losing all his success to drugs and alcohol. Then, in the even darker second act, we watch as the life he knows in London is completely destroyed by the Home Office. For 13 years, Vanriel is stuck in Jamaica, living on the streets with no access to healthcare, and no option to return to the only home he knew, having come to the UK aged six as part of the Windrush Generation. It is a modern tragedy. But it is not unexpected. Blaxland makes sure to layer the earlier part of the script with nods to Vanrielâs future. âYou wonât find someone more British than me,â he declares. He speaks fondly of his life as the âTitan of Tottenhamâ. He even calls Jamaica a âforeign country.â From the start, it is clear that the UK is his home. It is an unquestionably powerful drama, not least because itâs true. But stuffing someoneâs whole life into two-and-a-half hours doesnât always work. There is not enough scope to get to know the secondary characters in Vanrielâs life w

âParadise Now!â review
Can a pyramid scheme make all your dreams come true? Well, in Margaret Perryâs new play, maybe. Paradise is a multi-level essential-oils company that promises the âdetermined, ferocious womenâ that join its team a life of luxury. And for some of them, its little fragrance bottles are the key to a get-rich-quick new reality. But thereâs trouble in Paradise; a darkness is close to the surface. Perryâs play is a thorough look into the highs and lows of working for a business chain â even if one too many threads are left hanging by the end. Paradiseâs new employee is Gabriel (Michele Moran), a 63-year-old Irish woman who lives with her knackered sister and âlife-partnerâ, Baby (Carmel Winters). Hitherto unemployed, she abandons her meandering days of crisp eating and television watching after meeting Paradise seller Alex (Shazia Nicholls) at a women-in-leadership event. Soon, Gabriel is signed up and ready to create her own business strategy to get the next herd of âpowerfulâ women onboard too. Perry strikes a balance between finding comedy in her charactersâ usually sorrowful states and exploring their naivety. Gabriel â played by Moran with astronomical warmth â is so desperate to âbuy some sleepâ for her overworked sister, sheâll do anything she can to make money. Alex suffers from extreme panic attacks that leave her breathless and immobile, but chooses to use them as part of her marketing technique. The nervous and slightly jittery Laurie (Rakhee Thakrar) is constantly fight

âDinner with Grouchoâ review
Two of the greatest creative minds of the twentieth century meet for dinner. In Frank McGuinnessâs new play, TS Eliot and Groucho Marx dine together in London, following their years of written correspondence. Inspired by the pairâs real-life meeting, âDinner with Grouchoâ imagines the event, setting it in an otherworldly, sandy-floored restaurant - probably a nod to the Margate Sands in Eliotâs âThe Waste Landâ. Yet, even in such great company, this evening is meek and underwhelming.  Designed by Adam Wiltshire, there is an ethereal quality to Loveday Ingramâs production. A witch-like woman, The Proprietor, played spookily by Ingrid Craig hosts the evening. With a knowing glance and chant, she summons the men into her surreal dining room, primed with a gingham tablecloth, shining cutlery and gleaming wine glasses. In they come - from the past, present or future, to take their seats, ready, for conversation to flow. Once they arrive, the play starts to become charming â if only for a moment. As Groucho, Ian Bartholomew is eccentric, moustache-twitching and funny. With a spring in his step, he again and again toasts the pairâs good health, giggling as he does. By contrast, Greg Hicksâs Eliot can barely reach a grin. Sour and ailing, he plays the celebrated poet stiffly, as if physically confined tightly by his rigid grey suit. Heâs unable to lose himself enough to laugh along with ease; even in the moments of sudden dance, the pairâs physical differences scream loudly. But, t

âPeter Panâs Labyrinthâ review
Apparently itâs panto season again already. But âPeter Panâs Labyrinthâ comes with a very definite twist. Comedy trio Sleeping Trees are celebrated for their family-focused annual mash-ups of well-known fairytales: next month their all-ages âLittle Red Robin Hoodâ opens at Battersea Arts Centre. But before that, theyâre taking on the adult market: the show comes with a 16-plus age recommendation. With the considerable help of Dan Wye â aka famed drag queen SĂ©ayoncĂ© â this is the story of Peter Pan, with a nice supply of cult â80s kidsâ film âLabyrinthâ and a dash of Guillermo del Toroâs dark fantasy âPanâs Labyrinthâ thrown in for good measure. Here, Peter Pan is middle-aged, lonely, and struggling to keep down a job after being kicked out of Neverland. But after he finds an invitation to Tinkerbell and Captain Hookâs upcoming wedding he is determined to find a way back. With the help â well, more like hindrance â of his âomnipotent genieâ, who bears an uncanny resemblance to David Bowieâs Goblin King from âLabyrinthâ, he sets off on a quest to turn back time. Much of the plot is nonsensical, but that doesnât make the ride any less fun. To begin, Wyeâs Bowie-alike instructs us to âswitch on our imaginationsâ by taking out pretend keys and snorting non-existing ketamine off them. And then weâre off: this is a seriously silly couple of hours, complete with reworked Bowie big hits, crass jokes and loveably low-budget props and costumes. On our way, we meet a motley crew of supp

âA Single Manâ review
With his seminal descriptions of the Weimar Republic, Christopher Isherwood is lauded as being one of the great writers of the twentieth Century. But it is his meditative novel âA Single Manâ in which he believed he came the closest to what he wanted to achieve. Over the course of 24 hours, George, a 58-year-old gay Englishman and professor living in Los Angeles ambles through his everyday tasks and interactions, all the while continuing to mourn the recent loss of his long-term partner Jim who died in a car accident. In Simon Readeâs adaptation, directed by Philip Wilson, Georgeâs life is sepia in tone. Choked with grief, his experiences are dulled out to become colourless. In University lectures, he teaches the literary greats with passion, but his words fall largely on deaf â or at least, immature â ears. At home, his morning routine has a nagging sense of sullenness. With the prime of his life behind him, George is an animal battered; and the constant passing of time is forever at the forefront of his mind. âIâm afraid of being rushed,â he glumly admits. Theo Fraser Steele channels the essence of Colin Firthâs take on George in Tom Fordâs 2010 film version and feels entirely natural for it. Always slightly withdrawn, there is careful hesitation in each of his exchanges. Yet, despite his natural urge to remain unsociable and alone with his ever-ticking thoughts, there is wry wit to his speech. With his back straightened and a traditional English awkwardness, Steeleâs playi

âSilenceâ review
Tales of lost land, friendship and lives: âSilenceâ, a co-production by the Donmar Warehouse and Tara Theatre, brings to life tragic personal stories from the Partition of India and adapts them to fit the stage. Marking the seventy-fifth anniversary of the tumultuous event, âSilenceâ uses Kavita Puriâs book, âPartition Voices: Untold British Storiesâ as source material, with writers Sonali Bhattacharyya, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, Ishy Din and Alexandra Wood putting together a collection of performances of eyewitness testimonies from interview subjects born under the British Raj. The account of journalist, Mina (Nimma Harasgama), who manages to convince her reporter colleagues that these histories are worth telling, on the promise that she gets her own, unwilling father (Bhasker Patel) to speak, adds a rough structure to the anthology of memories. While this lack of narrative may halt its overall drive, the power of âSilenceâ comes in its impassioned, painful truths. Directed by the artistic director of Tara, Abdul Shayek, the confessions in âSilenceâ are handled with dignity and care. Designed by Rose Revitt with large hanging canvas screens that show buzzing projections of archive footage between scenes, the stage largely gives space to voices rather than things. And so it should be: for this is a legacy that has long been muted. Told in a documentary theatre style, it is full of affecting accounts of violence on once peaceful soil, overcrowded migration on railways, and kindn

âThe Darkest Part of the Nightâ review
Hold tight: as the title of Zodwa Nyoniâs new play suggests, this is a dark one. At their motherâs funeral, Black siblings Dwight and Shirley recall memories from a childhood spent in Chapeltown, Leeds in the 1980s. At home with their parents, their family lived through hard times. They had poverty, racism and Dwightâs undiagnosed autism to contend with - but even as we see them push and pull against each other, there is also a collective struggle to survive in a world that wasnât built in their favour.The mammoth ideas in Nyoniâs play arenât always written with enough nuance. As adults, the spats between Shirley and her partner Calvin come to the boil too fast. Lines from an underwritten social worker character, Anna, are a little too cliched to really tease out the sinister nature of the system. Still, these undeniably important issues make a necessary piece of theatre in which we see the everyday through music-loving Dwightâs eyes.Director Nancy Medina does a good job of blending past and present, with astute opening staging that has a young and older Shirley pacing the familyâs living room. Jean Chan has shaped the home-styled set to include full-scale dance speakers. When Dwight blares music or is forced to turn it down, it is played only at the volume he hears it. Even his anxiety attacks, under blazing red lights, come as the revolving record on the stage floor continues to keep spinning.In the even more harrowing second half, the play zooms outwards to look at racism

âJitneyâ review
Set in an unlicensed taxi office 1970s Pittsburgh, August Wilsonâs âJitneyâ â the first in his great Pittsburgh Cycle of plays â explores life through the lens of a group of Black cab drivers, trying their best to make do with the hand theyâve been given and find a way to get by. First previewed at the Leeds Playhouse in 2021, Tinuke Craigâs exquisite revival peels back the walls of their crumbling workplace, allowing us to enter it as bystanders who have happened to stumble across their little world. Inside a small but effective box set designed by Alex Lowde, the men gossip, joke and argue their way through existence. But, though the play is firmly set in â70s America, their conversation has a modern urgency. Thereâs talk of gentrification: idle office chit-chat is peppered with worries about the local white developers knocking down their block. Some of the men work night and day in the hope of making life better. The demands of work control them; they live at the beck and call of the wall phone.  The beauty of Wilsonâs writing is its realism. Each driver is a uniquely constructed individual that bursts off the page. Thereâs Turnbo, played wholeheartedly by Sule Rimi, the groupâs busy body and hot-head who is unable to stay out of peopleâs business; and thereâs his rival Youngblood (Solomon Israel), a man striving to do his best for his family but constantly falling short. The richness with which Wilson writes his characters is a gift to any actor.And this is a talent-packe

âGirl on an Altarâ review
There is something excruciating about âGirl on an Altarâ, veteran Irish playwright Marina Carrâs new adaptation of Aeschylus's ancient tragedy âAgamemnonâ. Pounding and relentless, it narrates Greek general Agamemnonâs betrayal of his wife Clytemnestra after he offers up their young daughter Iphigenia as a sacrifice for the sake of war. But while it remains an intricate study of men and their violent capabilities, Carr has pushed Clytemnestraâs turmoil centre stage. Directed by Annabelle Comyn, the result is a torturous picture of grief. Told under never brightening, smoked lighting designed by Amy Mae, the first and most engaging section is a stomach-churning recounting of the lead up to their childâs murder. Eileen Walsh as Clytemnestra vents her story with knowing anguish from the future, while David Walmsleyâs Agamemnon is an unwavering, power-crazed warrior, desperate to secure his dominance.Both are tectonic performers with arresting chemistry. Stuck between her remaining desire for her husband and despising him for his monstrous filicide, Walsh is superb at playing mental confliction. Together, the pairâs scenes are electric; a back and forth verbal battle that renders their mutual obsession for one another â even if their will-they-wonât-they moments are stretched out far too long.Carr has written most of the drama in lengthy, lyrical monologue sections. But while this is wholeheartedly Clytemnestraâs story, other characters also get a chance to give their side. Pivot