Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

First, let’s get it out there that I think Paapa Essiedu is an impressive actor so I was really pleased to get an on-the-day ticket for a second row seat to see his performance as Delroy.  I really like the auditorium at Soho Place, I don’t think there is a bad seat anywhere, but this was a particularly  good view although sometimes a bit uncomfortably close to the action. This 100 minute long monologue is intense, even more so in this intense space with eye contact possible with every member of the audience, adding to the engagement, or maybe complicity we feel.  And as ‘Delroy’, or maybe Essiedu, may well ask you a specific question and expect an answer we’d better be paying attention. I have somehow been seeing this trilogy of state of the nation plays in reverse order.  I saw the third (Closing Time) last year, but I still need to book to see the first one (Michael), annoyingly I missed Rafe Spall as Michael in the first iteration because I was ill.  Doing i...

My main reason for seeing this play was its amazing cast of Deborah Findlay. Gina McKee, Romola Garai with Anjli Mohindra and Harmony-Rose Bremner, all playing ‘Annie’ from small child to older age to create a powerful but playful story of a life.  The whole cast is on stage for the whole performance, with each age introduced with a tableau.  Annie strikes a pose for a snapshot to set the scene in front of a white sheet as a backdrop; a fresh page added for each chunk of the story with the narrative handed on from one iteration of Annie to the next.   This is a history of the last 60 years through one woman’s life, taking in politics and world events, cultural and sexual change through the decades with collective memories of different times but focusing on the intensely personal experiences of one woman.  I loved the depictions of moving through the generations, but with the essential woman still present.  It felt like it struck exactly the right note of li...

This Pulitzer prizewinning play by Katori Hall presents as a warm family comedy drama and it works very well at that level. Cordell (Kadiff Kirwan) hasn’t got a job, and left his wife and sons two years ago for his new partner Dwayne (Simon-Anthony Rhoden) and he is still feeling guilty about both, but he is putting all of his energy into winning the Memphis Hot Wing Competition, and he has called on their friends and potential couple Big Charles (Jason Barnett) and Isom (Olisa Odele) to help.  Meanwhile Dwayne is worried about his nephew E.J. (Kaireece Denton) going off the rails.  The final character here E.J.’s dad (Dwayne Walcott) a man who thinks masculinity is all about being tough.   So, this is a found family of Black American men, bringing together different versions of masculinity and sexuality and all trying to live their best lives.   There are many layers here, including references to racism, homophobia and police brutality (E.J’s troubled mum ...

I saw a review that started with ‘it’s impossible to review this play without spoilers’ so obviously I stopped reading.  That meant for the first half hour I had absolutely no idea what was going on.  Then we get a reveal, triggered by the word ‘Starbucks’ when it starts to make (just a little) more sense.  Liberal in its use of degrading racial slurs and stereotypes, and with sex as a constant focus, it succeeds at keeping us uncomfortable throughout.  Initially this is because of the overdone nature of what we are seeing being played out on a plantation, but after that initial reveal it gets, if anything, even more tough as we explore the undercurrents between the couples on stage.  Stunning performances from everyone, but Fisayo Akinade as Gary stood out for me in particular with such a nuanced performance.  The final shocking scene between Kit Harrington as Jim and Olivia Washington as Kaneisha came close, both incredibly uncomfortable and powerful, not...

 At two hours straight through this play is at the limit of my concentration without an icecream to refresh my synapses, and by the end my brain certainly felt it had been through a workout.   Originally conceived and workshopped by Simon McBurney and Complicité, the play opens with a simple set of a chair and one man. Khalid Abdalla opens as himself then morphs into ‘Omar’ then others during the following couple of hours.  He starts with an entertaining lecture on memory, and how the brain works, but quite quickly diverts into thinking about his family then the London diaspora and this segment ends with a piece of audience participation to underline how closely humans are related to each other as well as how our own memories work.  I don't like audience participation but it was for good reason. Kicking off from the way that the hippocampus in the brain is responsible for creating both memories and imagining the future, this spirals off into mixing the stor...