Theatre 2017: Review Thirty-three: Young Marx

Young Marx, The Bridge Theatre, London. November 2017.

After a busy week away for me, and a nightmare journey for Rebecca, we were both hoping for a huge amount from Young Marx. We'd also convinced Mr. Norfolkbookworm that this was going to be good and worth a trip to London...

The Bridge Theatre is brand new and it felt lovely walking through the doors on a cold and wet November afternoon. It was bright, warm and spacious with friendly staff.

Due to booking at different times we weren't all sat together, Rebecca and I were in the side of the gallery and Mr. Bookworm was in the back row of the same gallery, square on to the stage.  The side seats were very clever as they were angled to face the stage - no awkward leaning needed.  Our seats did seem a little hemmed in as there was a low black ceiling almost in our eye line - it looked like a plane's bulkhead - but once the play started we didn't notice it at all.  Mr. Bookworm said he found the sound muffled from his seats but as he has some hearing problems (and we didn't test the seats) we can't say if that was him or the acoustics.

Now for the play, well for me it was just the tonic I needed. It explained a lot of Marx and Engels' ideas in a way that I finally understood but it had me smiling and laughing from the very beginning. At times it bordered on descending in to farce, which would have snapped me out of the mood, but it always stayed just the right side of that comedy line.

The play was full of killer lines, which I am still chuckling over. I also loved the scene in the library, some might think that it is over the top and could never happen in such and august place but I know better.  The character sketches of patrons behaviour was spot on throughout, the end of this scene did have me doing a double take and wondering if the interval gin and tonic had gone to my head more than I anticipated!

There was some darkness to the play, and it did have some pertinent points to make but they weren't rammed home and I just thoroughly enjoyed this lighthearted comedy and can't wait to make a return visit to the theatre.

Theatre 2017: Review Twenty-nine - Boudica

Boudica, Shakespeare's Globe, London. September 2017.

After two shows that I found to be shockingly bad (and another that we didn't even bother going to) this was the last chance for the summer 2017 season to redeem itself...

For the most part I think that this new play did. This was a fun  retelling of a version of the Boudica story, this one from an incredibly feminist standpoint.  While I was watching the play I enjoyed it but a week on I am struggling to remember much of the show apart from broad brush strokes.

At times it felt a bit obvious and didactic. It was also quite simplistic with characters taking just one stance each rather than being nuanced (with the exception of Boudica herself), it was also pretty bloody and sweary!

However as Boudica and the Iceni come from East Anglia this play was always going to be a hit with me as the cast didn't attempt to speak in Norfolk dialect!

The addition of the modern pop songs - the cast singing a version of London Calling at the start of the second half (as they planned the attack on London) and then I Fought the Law (and the law won) at the end - really worked for me. The ending had been a little stop/start and this coming together was a great way to finally end the show.

This isn't a perfect play but it was a nice way to end the outdoor season at the Globe after so many disappointments. I have tickets to one more play programmed by Emma Rice but I am far more excited by next season when the theatre loses the lights and sound systems and gains a new AD.

Theatre 2017: Review Twenty-eight - Against

Against, Almeida Theatre, London. September 2017.

Well a week on and I still don't know what to make of this play. And reading online reviews I don't think that I am alone in this.

I liked a lot about this play. The characters & the individual stories all had me captivated. The basic idea is that Luke* (Ben Wishaw), a rich entrepreneur with an interest in space travel, has received a message from God to "go where the violence is." He uses his fortune to move into communities where violence has happened (a town after a school shooting, a university with a sex assault scandal). He stays long after the mainstream media have gone to try and get to the heart of the community and encourages people from all sides of the story to talk with him and publish their tales on his website.

All well and good, but then people who don't think their stories are being told start to question and criticise and things unfold and not for the good.

This strand of the play was great but then there were the odder parts - Luke's relationships with women, the story of his father, and his business rival (definitely not Jeff Bezos & Amazon) sat oddly in the play for me and I think that the scenes with the two workers in the non-Amazon were worthy of their own play (perhaps with Luke's story as the secondary line).

I'm also not at all sure what the message of the play was - there were so many ways to read it that it left me confused.  I know that some audience thought is good but not knowing at all if it is a nihilistic play or an optimistic one is a leap too far.  I can also see other's criticism that calls it highly misogynistic on reflection many of the female characters only existed as ciphers, however I did like that the stage (almost) nudity was completely equal!

We saw a lot of Ben Wishaw in this and I do think that he held the play together, with a weaker actor I think I'd have lost patience with this play totally, where as now I am at least still spending a lot of time thinking about it even if I can't work out if I liked it!



*I am guessing that Luke is supposed to be a version of Elon Musk, especially once we meet Jon later on.

Theatre 2017: Review Seventeen - The Ferryman

The Ferryman, Royal Court, London. May 2017.

A few year's ago Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem was the big 'thing' in London theatre and for some reason Rebecca and I missed this. We saw his Mojo on opening night and could see that it would be a good play when it settled down into the run so when The Ferryman was announced we pounced on tickets.

Apart from seeing that it garnered dozens of five star reviews and that it was a family drama set in Ireland I knew nothing about this play and I think that this was the right way to approach it - which means I am going to write nothing about the plot here.

This was a clever piece of theatre as it drip fed information to the viewer and I made assumptions and guesses as to how the story was going to go and every time I was wrong - but what we got was better. At the end I felt stunned, it was such a powerful piece of theatre. Both Rebecca and I were on our feet for a standing ovation, whilst wiping the tears from our faces.

It feels wrong to have such a short review for such a fantastic 3 1/4 hours in the theatre but even now a few days on all I can say is 'wow!'

This is transferring to the West End next month and I am hoping to convince Mr Norfolkbookworm to see this. If this isn't in my top 3 plays by the end of the year then I will be surprised and so happy that 2017 has been a fantastic year of theatre!

Theatre 2017: Review Sixteen - Nell Gwynn

Nell Gwynn, Shakespeare's Globe, London. May 2016.

I am so pleased that this has come back to the Globe. In 2015, when it first played, I also didn't see it when in came to Cambridge in the hopes that it would return to the Globe like the rumours had suggested. When the day of the play came around it has to be said that my heart wasn't in it entirely - the lovely warm weather of April had morphed into some really cold, unseasonable, weather in Norfolk and the idea of sitting in an open air theatre wasn't appealing.

I am so glad that we went (this will be Mr Norfolkbookworm's only trip to the Globe this season). From the moment the play started I had a happy smile on my face and this just didn't slip for the entire performance.  The story is slight in many ways but it has a lot to say about the Nell's time and our own - Swale seems to be the mistress of making history speak to us without over doing it, while at the same time knowing that you can write with a broad brush for performances at the Globe.  The lines about how important the arts are and Brexit were utterly played to the audience but yet some of the quieter lines making similar points resonated just as well.

It is hard to write about a piece of theatre that I loved so much, I wanted to watch it again instantly and I am worried that if I write too much about it I will lose the magic. This was the ultimate in a feel good show and has set the bar high for the rest of the Globe's Summer of Love season.

Theatre 2016: Review Sixteen

X The Play, Royal Court, London. April 2016.

I really don't know where to start with this play, and I think that the fault is with me.  From reviews I'd heard on the radio (possibly only half listened to as I was cooking) made me think I was going to see something that was going to be akin to The Martian or Red Dwarf - a comedy set in a space outpost.

It started out like that, a group of people are in a ship or base on Pluto and all of a sudden they fall out of communication with Earth. So far what I was expecting.

Then things got weird and it became more like a horror film, and then it got even more strange and while it will stay with me for a long time I am not sure at all what the play was about.  Dementia? Madness? Nightmare? Drug hallucination?

I'm not sure it matters in some way as Rebecca and I are still talking about it, looking for other theories on the meaning and generally being haunted by it.  It won't make my top 10 but I don't think it will be in the bottom three either, thought provoking is good.

Theatre 2016: Review Fifteen

Lawrence After Arabia, Hampstead Theatre, London. April 2016.

On a lovely sunny, if not warm, evening Rebecca and I went out to Hampstead to see only the second performance ever of this play. Apart from the (in)famous film Lawrence of Arabia I didn't know an awful lot about the eponymous Lawrence and so I was hoping for a play that would add more to my knowledge while being enjoyable.

I got just what I wanted, and more.

The play is set in the early 1920s as Lawrence is hiding from the press after joining the RAF incognito. His hiding place is with George Bernard Shaw and his wife who are also helping him to edit his memoirs.

We are also treated to some flashbacks to Lawrence's time in Arabia during the war and how he worked with both the Arabs and the Allies during World War One.  The story telling was clear, the actors brilliant and although there were some modern political messages within the play they weren't added with a crowbar, they felt like things the characters at the time would have said.

The last play by Howard Brenton that we saw, Doctor Scroggy's War, had a good premise but was muddled and felt like three plays mixed into one, but this was clean and informative.  I don't think that it is going to set anyone on fire but I now want to know more about Lawrence and the Shaws and have a stack of new books next to my bed ready to read.  I think that this play might end up in my 2016 Top Ten.

Jack Laksey as Lawrence (photo from Hampstead website)