Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

I was expecting this to be a bit camp and funny, it’s Oscar Wilde with Ncuti Gatwa after all, but this packed house had such a lot of fun squeezed into it from the very first scene.  The set is Bridgerton bright, and the costumes are spectacular, from Gatwa’s pink ballgown to Lady Bracknell’s gorgeous outfits and hats. Let's start with the stately star of the show, Sharon D Clarke as Lady Bracknell, in this iteration as a fierce Caribbean matriarchal battleaxe who will stand no nonsense.  I loved the delivery of ‘a handbag’ where it was kept fresh and funny but not at all as I’m sure we all say it in our heads.  Whenever she was on stage she was the centre that everyone revolved around - a comic delight. Cecily (Eliza Scanlen) has a touch of  Violet Elizabeth from Just William about her while Gwendoline (Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjois) is played as a similarly determined and entitled young woman.  Like everything else in this production their performances are dialled up to ...

The Almeida is running this Arnold Wesker play from 1958 about an angry young woman taking issue with the way her family has always done things, alongside a revival of Look Back in Anger about the quintessential angry young man*.   Despite the sparse set, the play stakes its claim as a kitchen sink drama from the start.  The first long scene is set in her sister's kitchen as Beatie returns home to Norfolk from London, full of opinions gleaned from her unseen boyfriend Ronnie. The play shows its age in the amount of words needed to establish the family relationships and something of  Ronnie's character too, through Beatie's parroting of his insights.  Ronnie is full of socialist ideals but is a bit disdainful of the working classes that he is so keen to lift up.   Beatie though is clearly inspired by him and is able to quote full paragraphs of his words and opinions, nicely highlighted in the play by Beatie standing on a chair to opine/preach with a ful...

Third row seats at bargain prices, and for once without any big people or heads in the way, so that got us off to a good start. As the play gets underway, when we first meet Coriolanus (David Oyelowo) he is smoothly mixing as part of the elite, glass in hand.  After his huge success as a general winning in a war for Rome he seeks to become a political leader but finds that a whole different thing.  He isn’t that keen on trying to appeal to the masses who he views with some contempt, and makes it clear that the games and nonsense required to gain popular support is beneath him. As a result, the Tribunes in the Senate who represent the plebs/masses don’t like him much and so successfully conspire to unseat him and get him banished.  The wheeling and dealing that surrounds Coriolanus is tricksy, with different camps trying to get advantage. As a play about power and politics, it speaks well about the gap between the masses and the elite, populism, and the desire to retain po...

With Patti LuPone and Mia Farrow as the lead and only performers in this play by Jen Silverman,  I booked before I even landed in New York. In the Booth Theatre in the centre of the Hells Kitchen area of Broadway, the house was pretty much full.  As is the custom in New York we got handed our free Playbill/programme as we entered. I have to say that while it is nice to get a cast listing without spending the fiver it costs in the UK, I do miss the more considered articles giving context that can be found in the more serious end of the UK theatre programme. Another weird thing about the Broadway experience is the way that Farrow and LuPone came out first to receive an ovation before they actually even started the play.. And then the applause at the end of every single scene. This made it feel like a sitcom and broke up the flow a bit unnecessarily from my perspective.   Anyway, the play is based on an odd couple set up, with Farrow playing Sharon, who after her mid-li...

To paraphrase Taylor Swift, home is where the heart is, but god I love New York.  After I visited in March this year, I told all of my friends that I was up for another trip if they wanted, and to my delight I got another opportunity much more quickly than I expected.  After my second visit in a year I  still don’t feel I am done with this place, and don’t know if I ever will be.  Below are some jottings about this trip just so I don’t forget.    Day 1 - Tuesday: Flights and Times Square  An uneventful flight where I just binged films - Go here if you want my notes on what I watched At the airport I picked up a cab and had the one of the suite of classic NYC cab experiences.  In this case the driver smelt of weed and was looking at his phone as often as the road.  There was one interesting moment when the only reason he avoided backending the car in front was because I shouted at him.  After hitting the brakes he just held his hand up t...

 I had been talking about another trip to New York, and so when this new production of Romeo and Juliet was announced, it was the perfect excuse.   With Broadway virgins Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler in the leads, Sam Gold, the love him or hate him director at the helm,  and Jack Antonoff, the show off/genius music producer in charge of original score, it could all go spectacularly wrong or be brilliant.  I booked the tickets before anything else, and then realised that meant I was going to have to go back to NYC for the second time in a year.  I usually prefer not to read reviews before seeing any play, but it previewed for a month, and given the amount of Tik-tok excitement it's not surprising that many of the more unusual features were heavily spoilered beforehand. The play is a fresh, young, take on the well known story.  Walking in the theatre foyer, there is loud disco music and flashing lights to set the scene and that continues inside the intima...

An eight hour flight to NYC requires either an amazing book, or a lot of movies.  I chose the movies. Dune 2 This had less pretentious music than Dune 1, and the cgi and cinematography were fabulous.  I actually wanted to be in that desert despite the weird creatures that could kill me.  The downside is the bloated storytelling which meant it was far too long.   That's why I only can only see myself watching this movie series on planes, despite the tiny screen. I Saw the TV Glow -   I had heard loads about this but hadn't seen it available anywhere.  My best way to describe it is Stranger Things meets trans allegory.  It is both strange and wonderful, and looks great, a mix of schlocky horror imagery and an evocative colour palette flooding the screen with that blurry 80's video aesthetic.  The basic story is about a couple of teenagers who are obsessed with a tacky teenage horror/mystery show, but it's all about the subtext.  In fa...