Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

Adolescence  ( Series, streaming on Netflix ).  This one made a huge splash but luckily I saw it early on so didn’t know what to expect.  I wanted to watch because of Stephen Graham’s involvement and it definitely delivered.  Each episode was one take, following the arrest of Jamie, a 13 year old boy accused of the murder of Katie a girl at his school.  The young actor playing Jamie (Owen Cooper) is amazing, particularly in the long scene in episode 3 with the psychologist (Erin Doherty - who is also stunning).  But every actor in this is bringing their A game.  Over four episodes we see the arrest, then the investigation which shows a pretty depressing but what felt realistic depiction of teenage lives lived half on line, and with uncomprehending adults missing what is under their noses.  It’s particularly focusing on misogyny and toxic masculinity, alongside a clear eyed look at the gulf between parents and children, failures of parenting, fathe...

This week’s outing was back to the Lyttleton for this play from the '70s.  Written by Michael Abbensetts, it was dusted off from the  National Theatre Archive, with additional writing by Trish Cooke.  Set entirely in his scruffy tailoring shop, Walker is trying to complete an order that will give him the money to realise his dream to open a proper suit shop. The play encompasses the dreams that he and his wife had when they emigrated from Guyana as well as his dreams for the future.  We see how trying to achieve his aspirations has taken a toll on his family life and the 'alterations' in dreams and expectations has affected everyone.  The context and challenges of life in Britain as a Black person in the 1970s are drawn out through the rest of the ensemble and the conversations they have, and the only white character, a Jewish immigrant from an earlier time gives an extra dimension to the stories about making your way in a new country.  The performance...

A last minute ticket got me into this sold out performance at the tiny Park 90 theatre.   This is a sweet but also bitter little story spread over 60 years about a romance that never really gets off the ground.  We first meet Leonard (Barney White) and Violet (Cassie Bradley) in 1942 in a hotel room in Bath where they have a stolen night together before Leonard joins the forces.  They are sweetly shy, but passionate and ambitious about their lives as they talk about waiting for each other and Leonard plans out their marriage after the war.  We next meet Leonard and Violet in the sixties and then again in the early 2000s.  These later meetings become both bitter and sad, with Leonard seemingly stuck and still waiting whilst Violet gets on with living life. Written in 2011 by Nick Payne who also wrote We Live in Time , this is a small tale but deftly written and beautifully staged and performed showing the effects of time on them each time they meet....

Unicorn at the Garrick Theatre  This new play by Mike Bartlett , has a fabulous cast with Nicola Walker (Polly) Stephen Mangan (Nick) and Erin Doherty (Kate) and all three actors are excellent.  I really enjoyed the first half which sets the scene of a tired marriage potentially being enlivened by becoming a throuple when Polly finds the ‘unicorn’, that person who might become the third leg to stabilise this relationship.  This is a wordy play, lots of graphic language, getting lots of laughs out of middle class awkwardness about sex, generation gaps, aging, midlife, and masculinity.  I found the relationships that develop between the three characters believable, and the ethical debates and implications of the situation, trying to find a way to live differently from social norms and without shame, really engaging.  I was really  invested in finding out how things would go. In the second half I was looking forward to teasing out more about how this relations...

Theatre first - Oedipus at the Old Vic This production with Rami Malek as Oedipus and Indira Varma as Jocasta is loud, looks fabulous and is full of dancers…  This is a very spare version of the classic Greek story, a bare script and a narrative that I am guessing took up less than half of the allotted 1 hour and 40 minutes without interval.  The set and production design was spare and beautifully lit. Malik’s Oedipus is smartly dressed, stiff and pretty sure of himself at the start, which makes his unravelling more obvious.  Indira Varma  though is passionate in her portrayal of Jocasta and her moment of revelation was, for me, one of the best moments in the play.   Overall the production didn’t fully hit the spot for me, mainly because of the way that the short emotional scenes which moved the story along were split between the extended dance sequences, taking the edge off what I felt should be more of a driving inevitability of the tragedy.  Don’t g...

 Film Grand Theft Hamlet     I have never played a video game properly but I do love Hamlet and the idea of a mashup grabbed me.  This film is ridiculous and often had me laughing out loud, but it is somehow beautiful and even moving in places.  During lockdown, actors Sam and Mark had been playing Grand Theft Auto and came up with the idea of staging Hamlet within the GTA world.  The result of the 16th century smashed into the 21st century virtual world is full of shocking violence but also great intelligence, wit and charm.  The film documents the process using only footage from the game; they hold auditions, rehearse and then finally run a live performance.  Moments of sublime beauty play out, whilst in the background, (or sometimes in the foreground) people are shot, or fight, or crash a blimp or a car.  In the same way as  Staged  seemed sometimes to capture something profound in amongst the messiness and stupidity of huma...

Backstroke, a new play by Anna Mackmin at the Donmar is a bit of a mixed bag but the cast including Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig was a very good reason to take a look. The play opens with Beth (Celia Imrie) in a hospital bed and Bo (Tamsin Grieg) her middle aged and flustered daughter trying to deal with hospital staff whilst following her mother’s wishes and at the same time, manage, long distance, a crisis with her own daughter.  At first I thought this might be a dementia and death play, and to a certain extent it is, but very quickly the play starts to jump backwards and forwards in time, seeming randomly, each scene exploring more of the difficult relationship between the two women. In the first half we have learnt that Beth is not an ideal mother. In the second half though it becomes clear that this is a more nuanced story about mothers and daughters.  We begin to see a more rounded picture, and that Beth and Bo have had moments of joy, closeness and mutual support mixed...