Monthly Archives: July 2026

SHAKESPEARE: OUTDOOR, OUTRAGEOUS AND OPEN-HEARTED

  Start by knowing that this is a bangingly entertaining evening out under the Suffolk skies, with ragamuffin costumes and lovely ramshackle beach-huts under the great chestnut tree.  Red Rose Chain has been doing outdoor productions for years, and their venue ever has been,  in recent years, this field at the Anglo-Saxon ship site, well supported by the National Trust.  The summer show’s  tradition, which Shakespeare would probably approve, involves a good deal of clowning and audience-teasing, music-hall or panto moments combined with a real Shakespearianist ability not only to treat the poetry with respect, but to ease down  to poignant feeling when – between the larks and misunderstandings – real human loves and fears are played out.   

      Those who follow this extraordinary little company and deeply mourn its founder – Jo Carrick died this year –  will rejoice as I do at the way  David Newborn and Katy Latham chose, in her memory, to bring back Jo’s own rampaging production of Twelfth Night, complete with her songs and treatments. And, let me just mention,  the uniquely ground-breaking casting of  Antonio,  rescuer and devoted friend of shipwrecked Sebastian.  Here, Antonio is a puppet dog: large, dishevelled and hairy, designed by Maia Kirkman-Richards and operated by various of the seven human cast depending what’s going on (this is a tight, neat production with some good doubling (Orsino and Aguecheek,  Maria and Sebastian).  

      There is also joy for regular aficionados of the group in seeing last year’s Hamlet now in a garish full-body bumblebee-striped onesie as the deluded Malvolio. This is  Vincent Moisy ( also memorable as the Witchfinder-General in Ipswich, London and Broadway).   His is  a lovely interpretation of the haughty major-domo in Olivia’s household: very selfconsciously officer-class at first,  dealing fiercely with  Emily Jane Kerr’s diminutive drunkard Sir Toby and Darren Latham’s pleasingly OTT camp Aguecheek.   His outraged cries of  “Sir Tob-eh!” is masterly.  But when he has been deceived that Olivia loves him and will make him her lord,  there’s a brief, properly touching,  moment as he wonderingly says “I thank my stars I am..happy!”.  He never has been, poor Malvolio. Always played the hopeful Jeeves, always uncertain beneath it.  

      Feste , the revellers and Maria hide beautifully behind the lower branches of the great tree, delighted at his foolish credulity over the fake-news letter.   But in the second half  Malvolio’s  torment  by this gang is genuinely nasty, more so in the growing dusk as the tree becomes spooky, full of danger; the drum-banging , shouting, accusing campaign of the joke that goes too far is  properly horrid,  as it should be.  Alex Murray’s Feste,  who spends much of the show winding up the audience to the correct level of panto frenzy ,  also has a good moment of reality when he tries to deny  it all to his outraged mistress. 

       And so it all resolves, as the old tale has these four centuries, with the absurdity of errors and the relief of truthful love. And, let me say, some impressive fights.  This young company  (Ryan Penny organizes the mayhem) always seem well up for a bit of wild brave physicality.  Just as – under Jo Carrick’s insistence for years working together  – they are strongly audible:  projecting properly and intelligibly,  not needing to be miked as so many outdoor shows now are. 

       Red Rose Chain dedicated this production to its lost leader. And she would be proud of them.

www.redrosechain.com   to 22 Aug

rating four

   THE SEASON BEGINS!

  Not doing formal mouse-rate reviews of these, but for local eyes and visitors it’s worth nipping through the ones I can get to   – this one is around all week, before moving on to Southwold and I can report that director Charlotte Parry and cast do old Oscar proud.  Respectfully, and Mark Sterling’s design is beautiful, economical and sleek as Wilde would want.  

       The only eyebrow-raiser is, I suppose,  the genderswitch of the manservants, Lane in the city and Merriman in the country: Megan Sharman plays both as a Sloaniely elegant, if slightly improbable, female senior servant in 1920s cocktail-trousers .  Fair enough , Algernon might have been a trendsetter.   And it’s the only improbability: everyone else is just-so.The young quartet are fun all the way,  hugely active (the physical direction is splendid, mobile and free and funny: some productions are so overwhelmed byt he language they never remember how young these larky creatures are).  

Will Howard’s Algernon is  fast-moving and slick, Joe McArdle the slightly slower Worthing (especially when attempting dignity),  Kate Hunter beautifully upmarket as Gwendolen and Charlie Cameron edibly sweet and huge-eyed as Cecily.    The elders,  Michael Shaw’s senatorial Chasuble and Annie Miles Prism, are what they should be.  

    But you need to know about Lady Bracknell?  Naturally.  As an experienced Bracknell-watcher for some sixty years I can assure you that Nicola Sanderson is just what you want:  an immense presence, dour in determination, implacable in authority,  a walking monolith of wealth and hauteur.   And when it comes to “a handbag!” she avoids the traditional Edith Evans roar,  just murmurs it amazedly, and keeps the shocked fury quietly seething until moments later it erupts in a cry of THE LINE IS IMMATERIAL!

       Just what you need.   It’s a lovely evening, two sharp hours with interval, and it’ll be nice to see McArdle again next in Show and Tell…

all bookings www.act.co.uk  and 01728 343344

TROUBLED HEARTS AND TORCH SONGS 

   When someone pops a sticker on your cameraphone at the door it generally means a performer is going to get their kit off, repeatedly.    Not in this caseI am relieved to say, though this 90-minute chamber musical does have one late and I suppose spoilable coup de théatre.  And the first excitement is the seats: if there’s one thing the dear Menier’s usual benches are not, it’s an acreage of  comfy pink plush. But for  Mark Sonnenblick and David Cromer’s show there it is:  a few of the audience are sitting  at cabaret tables below, the rest of us  are tiered above, on the plush, between moody little shaded lights. Shoulda brought a Martini. 

       For we are in a basement back-room jazz club in Greenwich Village NY, early 1960’s. The last generation of melancholy, yearning torch-songs are struggling on against the jolly simplicities of rock ‘n roll (in one lovely line, a hero scoffs  that “I wanna hold your hand” is not a song for grown ups but a kidergarten rhyme.   Here, the mood is adult, Sinatra-mafiosa, bruised and melancholy with impossible loves. 

        Our narrator is Ben Platt as the ebulliently showbiz Trevor, hosting apparently a cabaret memorial to Arthur Brightman, a songwriter to whom he was muse and lover in their twenties. He tells the tale, with Sonnenblick’s original songs in a Gershwyn or Porter American Songbook pastiche style. Some are brilliant: “The mercy of love”  and “The bells keep ringing” both sound like originals one had temporarily forgotten.   Trevor’s storytelling is   assisted by the more sober figure of Gregor Milne at the piano as Arthur himself : they are improvising , composing together, gradually expressing the progress of their early relationship and commitment to one another  through  the numbers.     And – this is the heart of the tension  – at a time when such love was still illegal, its expression confined to dark late night shows in oft- raided dives like the Never Get. 

         At first I was not much taken by the figure of Trevor, cocky and camp and a bit too  self-assured as a singer (that becomes important later). But the men’s situation fascinates, draws you in; they are both artists with ambition and a need for expression,  and lovers forbidden to express what they are.    “We were the biggest show that didn’t exist” says Trevor.    When you remember how many gay songwriters  and artistes have resignedly changed the pronouns to fit the hetero world, that stings. When Arthur starts to make good, their best song goes to Peggy Lee. 

       Trevor is up for self- assertion , as the age of gay marches and demands approaches. There’s a beautifully funny song about being arrested in a raid and fancying the cop “The kinda joy I hadn’t felt in ages, a pretty boy – on City wages!”.   He rejoices in the idea that “my song is a little too loud, my song doesn’t blend with the crowd”.  

       But Arthur is a quieter artist,  doesn’t want to be an outlaw, utterly despises the “hippies and druggies” who line up for the cause and are sometimes overenthusiastic in their cabarets.  “I am not someone who deliberately provokes law enforcement!” he yells once.  Now that is  beautifully topical at a time when many sober gay and lesbian voices dislike and resent the aggressive violence of trans campaigns.   

      The story builds, the songs throb emotion, crystallize deep feeling;  Trevor never changes.   But Arthur’s talent is real ,not just performative. If Columbia and the mainstream draw him away, what will become of Trevor?    By the last ten minutes you really, really mind.  Platt is not on the very top level as a singer, but as an actor he delivers a great deal. So does Milne.   And someone else,  which might explain the reason for the phone-sticker.  Bravo. 

menierchocolatefactory.com  to 12 September

rating 4 

FLOWERS, PHONETICS, PHABULOUS

     Always a joy to have them back: the phoneticist and the flower-girl, born to enthral one another and us.  Cheers first for Keziah Ibe as Eliza, fresh out of Arts Ed on a first professional job.  She eooowessand garrrrns at the start with confidently alarming shrillness,  then suddenly  – as the opera-crowd leave the stage to Covent garden workers round a brazier  –  sings “Wouldn’t it be loverly” at first merrily then downstage with a brief wistful sadness, then again cosily with the gang.  Ibe from the first sinks deeply into character, face, voice, and body:  defying Higgins with brave frightened brio then winning every heart in the house when suddenly the knack comes to her,  and the sweetness of her voice breaks through with “I could have danced all night!”.   And you believe, and foresee,  that the infuriating educator who showed her this power is the only man for her.  

        Hadley Fraser,  playing Higgins to the OCD maximum, was to me an absolute joy:   but then I am a sucker for anyone who can deliver complex Lerner-and-Loewe numbers while running at speed round a revolving living-room and shinning up a high library ladder in a rage about woman.  I loved his wild physicality,  including the theatrical cringing or rejoicing in the corner during Eliza’s eventual victories: he quite drove away memories of Rex Harrison in the film.  My companion  I should confess was less enthusiastic, yearning I think for more professorial dignity. But I thought him an absolute blast.  So is Gary Milner’s spirited Doolittle, though it feels odder these days to laugh merrily at his willingness to sell his daughter to a random toff for a fiver.  

    But overall the joy of Rachel Kavanaugh’s production is its fabulous liveliness: a relief after the oddly flat feeling I had at her Barbican Top Hat.   Stephen Mear’s choreography contributes much to its delight,  and   Peter McKintosh’s elegant, detailed but rapidly fluid set design carries the story through its three hours always bracingly. The costumes from East End to Ascot are magnificent:  honour to Poppy Hall’s wardrobe team for flawless high-speed changes for the nimble ensemble.  And almost best of all ,  the older women are wonderful.  Finty Williams is Mrs Pearce the sensible housekeeper,  reasoning with the appalling Higgins at the start and eventually, fondly,  assistd by her team of eye-rolling maids helping him into his shirt and tie in his thwarted fury at Eliza’s flight.   Rachel Stanley’s Mrs Eynsford-Hill is perfect,  all hat and good manners,  and even finer  is Belinda Lang as Higgins’ own exasperated matriarch.   When in the latter scenes Higgins and Eliza properly confront,  the glint in the mother’s  eye at the stage’s edge lights up the night.  Luverly!

cft.org.uk  to 5 sept

rating 5 

extra mouse for set/costume…

AMBITION, LOVE AND CHOICES IN AN OLDER IRELAND

       Jonathan Bank’s Mint Theater company lately gave us an arresting revival of Miles Malleson’s Yours Unfaithfully in this theatre,  and here he is reinvigorating another 1930s play, this time  by the near-forgotten Irish playwright Teresa Deevy,  From the title I vaguely expected a familiar story of wifely submission or rebellion, with the local crone andMother Church giving trouble on the sidelines.    Actually Deevy’s story is more interesting than that,   sparkingly youthful,  and  until the final moment (no spoilers)  Fiach Kunz’s dashing James Whelan has  as yet  married nobody.  

    He’s made a grand life for himself, though:  we meet him first by report,  in a short first-act scene where amiable Tom (Patrick McBrearty) and Bill McGafferty (Darragh Feehely) are joshing with pretty Nan Bowers (Cliona Flynn).   We get a sense of the town and its rumours:  Bill is off to a new job,  the others impressed that Whelan got the Dublin job several of them had been in for.  When our hero himself appears it is to swagger a bit, cocky and confident, pretty sure that though he hasn’t been accepted yet,  Nan will wait for him.  But she has an eye for another lad, Jack.    In the background is the sensible, less glamorous Kate (Eavan Gaffney). She’s everyone’s friend, and Whelan as he leaves has brought a bag of marbles  for her little brother Willy – known as Apollo.  

    It’s cosy,  the group”s natures well laid out in preparaation  for the longer, sharper life after the interval.  Now, seven years on, we’re in the office of Whelan’s  “Silver WIngs Motor Services”, with Tom as one of his drivers,  a proudly  grown-up Will in the front office and a more assured Kate dropping in and out,  disapproving of a new wild card  in the form of  posher uppity Nora, who clearly wants to be wife-to-james-whelan.    He , though, is oddly awkward with her advances (“showing yourself in that cheap way”) and observes “”I never speak long with Nora than I feel myself disappointed”.  The language is lovely. 

   David Rawle’s Will too is a bit of a treat here:   a touch camp, a touch absurd.  Decent workaday Tom,  his sharp understanding  drawn in a few moments , is another.   And of course into the office comes Nan: in a  black shawl, widowed with a child, wanting a job.  Small touches, and fine acting, enable all the principals to have visibly aged in the seven years:  Nan tired and beaten,  Whelan tougher and harder, Tom more perceptive.     But old slights and old loves live on: as Whelan says , Nan has “the same soft look she always had.”.   

        The emotional undercurrents and doubts are beautifully, gently achieved by them all: when Whelan snaps “nothing torments me. I’m perfectly happy” or Willy suddenly rises to disrespect his boss over his behaviour, your belief is complete.     It had for a while has seemed  sentimentally clear what will – and should –  happen between  these still-young people,  but then Deevy gives us one extraordinary dramatic moment that capsizes everything.  So when another six months have passed before the final scene,  the resolution leaves you , as you always should be in a play or novel,  reflecting with some worry on their afterlives.  Bravo!

Jermynstreettheatre co.uk  to 25 July

rating four

SOLDIERING AND SACRIFICE

.  This is one of the RSC’s big hitters:  five stars everywhere ,and promoted more as comedy than the romantic-chivalric classic it is,   Rostand’s 19c tragic epic in hexamers,  set in Franco-Spanish wars of the 17c.   So,  having missed the press night of this adaptation (by Simon Evans and the poet Debris Stevenson),  I bought a proper ticket. Can’t miss  Adrian Lester, even with the famous Cyrano false nose – and it’s always good to check how these  acclaimed shows actually feel from the cheapest seats. 

         I can report that actually the sightlines are  fine , once the framing meta-theatrical horseplay  of side boxes and a theatre manager searching for Cyrano are past (all amusing enoigh).And it’s the RSC,  they are all beautifully audible. So sit anywhere.  Just do: for Adrian Lester is one of our great 21c theatrical giants, and holds the stage through  every scene, from first swagger and banter, through formidable depths of feeling, all the way to his last words. Epic indeed. 

        The bones of the  original story have been borrowed by countless rom-coms: Cyrano is a great warrior, great heart and poet,  but his ugly nose makes him feel unlovable by women.   But to help out young Christian (Levi Brown, a handsome hunk but no talker)  Cyrano writes beautiful letters on his bEhalf to Roxane (Susannah Fielding), who he of course also loves at a distance.   The very expression of his adoration is a balm to his spirit.  

        Lester is tremendous, selfconsciously self deprecating, bantering, agile in proper heroic style.  He even does the best stage cartwheel since Bonnie Langford in Paddington (or Haydn Gwynne in 9 to 5, I record these with respect).   He is elder- brotherly to Christian, mocks  his idle commanding officer,  stays silently dazzled by Roxanne but not about to show inmanly weakness.   Fielding’s Roxanne is far more than he original author ever made her: funny, active, strong willed, likeable.   There are laughs, and the staging has two good theatrical devices following  Cyrano. One is a comically insistent  small onstage band suddenly turning up at his entrances (his legend, as great warrior and poet) and the other a small child version of homself, in straw hat, an innocent who wanders through, shy but clear eyed , a heartbreaking presence in the battle scene later. 

         For it’s the second act that makes it (the first, to be honest, makes your mind wander a bit, and two separate couples near me actually decamped in the interval).    That’s their loss;  for now we see seriousness,  soldiers weary and hungry  under draped canvas,  Cyrano writing  what may be a final  letter because they are ordered  to draw lethal fire for strategic reasons and may die. “I cleave to the memories of landscape without enemies” sighs the heroic poet. 

        But  Roxanne and her companions arrive, boldly,  dressed as nuns with provisions. And what is gripping is the reaction of the others.  Roxanne says to Christian that his beautiful words “chased me”, inspiring her journey.  But when he realizes that Cyrano has gone on writing to her in his name, every single day – Christian is  furious that this poetic adoration drew her into danger, and even more furious that she loves not him as a man, but the beautiful soul of the writer.   The lovely irony is that like Cyrano, he dreams of being  loved for his real self not “stupid bloody letters!”.   So what Cyrano thought of as being selfless, Christian sees as selfish. 

     The guns boom; Christian’s death in his friend’s arms devastates them all.  Roxanne is never disabused of her adoration for the lost lover who she thought wrote the letters.  Or not until the very, very end;  the final twenty minutes between her and Cyrano  in a monastery garden years later are memorable;  you feel the audience’s emotion breathing around you.  So, having wondered a bit about all the fuss until the interval,  you wonder no more. 

Delfontmackintosh.co.uk, to 5 sept

rating five