Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

This is an absurdist play from the 1950s by Eugène Ionesco in which all the people in a town gradually turn into rhinoceroses, so a slightly unusual premise to get our heads around.  This was a new production at the Almeida by Omar Elerian, which stripped a lot back.  At the opening of the play we are faced with a bare set, with just a curtain and the simplest of raised stage, and the cast, all except Berenger (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) dressed in clinical white outfits, meaning that there are few clues to what is going to happen.  We open by meeting the Provocateur (Paul Hunter) , who acts as the host and master of ceremonies for the evening, getting everyone hyped up with some dance movements that he uses again and builds upon during the play.   Then we get into the play proper, with stage directions given out loud by the Provocateur, always reminding us that this is a play and that the cast (and the audience too) are following instructions.  I loved the way ...

 Jab At the Park 90 Theatre, this one had an unusually small audience, so much so that we all naturally sort of socially distanced ourselves amongst the seats.  This is a relationship drama set in the midst of Covid.  Anne (Kacey Ainsworth) is a health worker and therefore ‘essential’ whilst Don (Liam Tobin), as his wife points out, is ‘non-essential’;  he agrees, he’s a luxury item ‘like a bath bomb’.  At the start of the lockdown , the banter is light, but as things progress, the cracks in the relationship show and things turn nasty.  Apparently based on a real story, it’s well performed and actually very funny.  It feels pretty accurate, and uses the real timeline including the lockdown language, the deaths, debates and Barnard Castle, but it doesn’t really set the world alight.  I think that we could have had more about the decision that Anne has to make and why she makes it, given the abusive relationship - that was sort of just displayed and...

 Warfare I got a last minute ticket for a preview of the new A24 film Warfare with a short Q&A with the director Alex Garland and a couple of the cast (Kit Connor and Cosmo Jarvis)  It was in the BFI IMAX which is probably the best way to see this immersive experience.  Garland's previous film, Civil War took a neutral view  of a fictional civil war in America.  It was graphic and grim, a sort of updated Apocalypse Now about war being pointless and hellish, but he got some criticism about not taking a moral stance.  This film takes it further in many ways, although it is about a real mission that went wrong in Iraq in 2006.  The film tries to remove any editorialising or imposition of narrative structure or morality, instead just letting it play out in real time over 90 minutes.  Based on the accounts of the US Navy Seals who were there, there is no hero, back story or character development; in fact it is often difficult to tell the men apa...

A younger than average audience was a good start for this new production by Nicholas Hytner and presumably that has something to do with Jonathan Bailey in the titular role bringing in the fans from his recent screen successes (Wicked, Bridgerton, Fellow Travelers).  By the cheers at the end I think everyone enjoyed it a lot.  We had a cheap seat in the front row, sort of behind this production which is (almost) in the round.  Apart from a few occasions when we were peering around chairs or between legs, the view was great though, and on many occasions I would argue better than some of the pricier seats. I’ve seen quite a few productions of this over the years, some funny, some heavy with the drama and politics.  This version strikes an effective middle ground, and is great at pulling clarity from the complicated politics going on throughout this play.  A spare set, modern dress and Succession-esque music set the scene here as a play about both power and fa...

Farewell Mr Haffman  A WW2 drama with a strange twist and quite a lot of sometimes uncomfortable laughs. It's 1942 in Paris, and Joseph Haffman (Alex Waldmann), a Jewish owner of a jewellery shop proposes that Pierre (Michael Fox), his French catholic employee takes over the business while Joseph hides in the cellar.  Meanwhile Pierre has a counterproposal of his own which turns this wartime drama into a somewhat fraught relationship triangle drama with the two men and Pierre's wife Isabelle (Jennifer Kirby). Giving us a different slant on the Nazi persecution of Jewish people, this had a lot packed in, but after the first hour I was wondering if it had been written into a corner.   However, the last half hour throws in a new twist which moved things along considerably.   Pierre agrees to host a dinner with Otto (Nigel Harman), the Nazi ambassador to Paris and his wife Suzanne (Jemima Rooper), putting the cat amongst the pigeons as Mr Haffman decides to com...