Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

Written a hundred years ago and rarely performed, it was interesting to see this first Noel Coward work, written when he was 18 years old,  performed at the Park Theatre in a revised version by Bill Rosenfield.  It opens as we might expect, in a genteel drawing room and Sheila (Lily Nichol) and Keld (Ewan Miller), who are both aspiring writers about to get married the next day, meet with Sheila’s friend Olive and another 'bohemian' couple, Naomi and Edmund.  Naomi and Edmund have never married, and Naomi explains that marriage is a 'rat trap' that would destroy their relationship, and predicts that Sheila will end up sacrificing her career for Keld.  Sheila and Keld laugh it off, pointing out they are too clever and too in love to make the mistakes they see in others.  After this slightly clunky foreshadowing, no surprise then to see that after a giddy honeymoon period, the pair find themselves bickering all the time, and then, later still, Sheila is no longer w...

A play about one woman’s struggle to hold down four jobs is very funny, particularly in dealing with the complications of entitled bosses. She has a home working job as a PA that she does while working her separate job as a concierge for some luxury flats, mixed with a house/dog sitting job, then evenings and weekends doing data entry.   It 's very funny but also it isn't.   All of this working means she doesn’t actually have any life for herself, i solated from her friends and family because she is working so hard, employed by unsympathetic and exploitative monsters.  It  gradually becomes clear how the trap has closed on her through trying to do the right thing for her family after her dad has run up huge debts with payday lenders.   Libby Rodcliffe is excellent and very very funny in playing Bea and her chaotic life, but in this monologue she also plays all of the other characters, moving around the stage to help us to keep track of Bea’s incre...

An adaptation and translation  of a Japanese play, this small but affecting production makes the most of the tiny space at the Park Theatre with a massive screen taking up the full width and height of the back wall.   The play is about a small boy setting off on a quest to try to find where his dad has gone after he died, since his mum tells him that dad has become a star. Shotaro becomes obsessed with trying to find out how that would have happened.  The narrative, as much as there is one, consists of Yoko (Millie Hikasa), Shotaro's mother trying to find where where her son has gone, meeting characters along the way and finding out what they each think happens after death.  Each of the characters are well drawn and likeable in their own right, bringing laughs and sometimes a more adult perspective on what often feels like a quite childlike story.  I loved the puppetry for the central character Shotaro and some of the scenes with the puppetry, full ensemble...

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...

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....

The first trip back to the theatre in 2025 was to this comedy about friendship, family, obsession and mental health.  A very funny but intimate three hander in a small space, it can be difficult to hit the right tone to actually make the audience properly laugh and stay believable, but this one got it just right.  Brilliantly written dialogue performed spot on, I really believed in this group of friends/family despite the frantic and overwrought responses that spiral from an unexpected and unwanted ‘gift’. I also loved the way that the excel spreadsheet was given its rightful place as a crucial tool for the obsessive mind. We had front row seats in the corner which meant that we were side on and slightly behind the action but actually it didn’t affect things too much at all, and we had a better view of what was going on behind the sofa… to be honest that really only came in useful once but still…. I laughed a lot; this is funny and with heart, letting us skate lightly across t...

‘AJ’ (Chanel Waddock) is a goalkeeper, number 2 in the women’s team with an opportunity to move up to ‘1’.  Angelina (Shannon Hayes) is preparing a pitch in her corporate job that might bag her the promotion she is after.  Through the 65 minutes of this play, we see the overt and more subtle challenges these women face just trying to make the most of their lives.  They have plenty going on already and then they both find they need an abortion.  Not as graphic as The Years , in performance at least, but unsparing in the language and discussion about the practicalities and pressures they face and the ramifications of the decision.   It was great to see another play talking about this, at a time when what should be the most basic of women's rights has become contested again. I wasn't convinced by the final reveal which felt a bit clichéd, but for showing the subtle but very real challenges that women still face, this was very nicely done.  I loved the che...

I love this intimate space at Park Theatre. This time we had a simple set of a living room decorated for Diwali with the audience on two sides; it was almost sold out for this performance so there was a great buzz in the room.   Rachel Singh (Amy Leigh Hickman) has an Indian dad (Bhasker Patel) and a British mum (Catherine Cusak) and she is having an identity crisis triggered by the failing health of her Indian grandad..  The family has never celebrated Diwali before and Rachel is determined to get it right.  Rachel is learning to put on her sari using a YouTube video and she has a checklist and instructions (including outfits)for the whole family, supported by her eager and very British boyfriend, Matt (Jack Flammiger).  Meanwhile,  Rachels’s brother David (Kisha Walker) is baffled by this determination to create something they never had.  Mum keeps getting it wrong though, despite trying hard with shopping and food and navigating and negotiating between t...

  I caught a preview of It’s Headed Straight Towards Us at The Park theatre in Finsbury.  Hugh (Sam West) and Gary (Rufus Hound) are two actors united in their enmity for each other, stuck in a trailer on a glacier for filming the seventh instalment in a superhero franchise.  We start with two classic actor stereotypes;  Firstly, Hugh, the fussy perfectionist who models himself on Daniel Day-Lewis with a steady career in supporting roles, proud of and defending his place in the hierarchy, and then there's Gary, the has-been, down on his luck, scratching a living in bit parts between drinking bouts at the nearest bar.  A pair of dinosaurs, Gary almost literally in a monster costume and definitely prehistoric in his attitudes while Hugh tries and fails to be a modern man. Joining the two is Leela (Nenda Neururer) as the young production assistants trying to keep everything on track.  Things start badly when Gary can’t be found, and then take a downward turn ...

 A spur of the moment ticket booking,  the studio at Park Theatre was almost full, with the front half of the audience at tables as if in a cabaret bar.   In this short one act play, Will, a northern ‘bloke’ tells us about the time he fell in love at first sight.  The difficult bit is that Candy, the object of his affection,  is the drag alter ego of his friend Billy.  Is Candy just Billy, or someone completely different? The hour long monologue is an exploration of what love is, the boundaries and cross over between love and friendship, romance and sex, and how much we can ever know one another. Will wrestles with identity,  masculinity and mental health along with his fear of being alone as he first luxuriates in, then struggles with, his new feelings.  It’s peppered throughout with laughs and banter with the audience which punctuate those heavier moments, keeping it entertaining.  Will (Michael Waller) is a bit of a lad and can tell a...

I caught Paper Cut in preview, and with the lead (Callum Mardy as Kyle) apparently battling a grotty cold.     This is playing in the studio at the Park Theatre and had an audience of 40 or 50 people (I started counting but got distracted) so with no interval there was no opportunity to sneak out for an ice-cream or g&t when it all got a bit tough.     The play is set in the context of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ about a US soldier, wounded by an IED in Afghanistan (the ‘paper cut’ of the title) returning home.     With a disability, a huge amount of anger and drugs, and with a gun in his bag, we watch Kyle navigate his difficult relationship with his brother (Joe Bolland), the soldier he loved but now also discharged due to his sexuality (Prince Kundai),  and a potential new love (Tobie Donovan) who also represents wider society’s understanding and treatment of these men.     There’s a strong sense of camaraderie and love and some great blea...