Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

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 Vardy 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 get me ...

 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...