Blogcritics Author: My London Your London

Concert Review: Silent Disco Live Featuring Supergrass, Concorde 2, Brighton, October 25

My London Your London — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 23:57:40 EDT

Lead singer Gaz, all beautiful teeth and tash, gave a vintage performance despite confessing to being "very, very drunk".
By Charlotte Baxter "This is no rules night," proclaimed Danny Goffey, Supergrass's exhuberant drummer, at the band's "silent" gig at the Concorde 2 in Brighton on Thursday. It was a little overstated - we were only listening to the music through headphones - but the band was up for it and let rip with a riotous, drunken...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Theater Preview: Reader, a play by Ariel Dorfman hosted by Amnesty International

My London Your London — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 05:49:25 EDT

Opens in London on May 2. The truth is out there, in that mulch of media-relayed current events, but we're not privy to it. Do any of us believe what we see on television, or really know what sort of world we live in? With luck, we'll soon be given a good idea, when Reader opens in London. The work of Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman, Reader is a politically charged but personal play about what happens to a society when it suppresses important truths in the name of higher ideals. Although it is set in a futuristic society, it is nevertheless a patent reflection our own. The main character is a professional censor, known sinisterly as The Pope, at whose hands the texts of the day are hacked into a language palatable to the controlled, 1984-like society he lives in. That continues until one day, when he begins work on a book that reflects his own life and forces him into a self-awakening. Dorfman says that the play was "a way of asking what would happen to a man who has spent his life suppressing the works of others if a book he was about to ban suddenly began to reveal secrets from his past and predict an anguishing future which was coming alive in front of his eyes".Reader sprang directly from the author's experience; it began life as a short story, written in vengeance against a dictatorial approach to art and literature in Chile at the time. "It was a sort of semi-tragic joke I was playing on those who had been censoring me and other writers all through the 20th century," Dorfman says. But the story soon expanded to address wider contemporary issues. The US government's attack on Iraq has unmistakable echoes of the violent, CIA-backed end to Allende's Chile in 1973. "The play continues to be sadly relevant. The governments portrayed in it smother, manipulate and control information in the name of the highest ideals, using the fear of the populace in an ongoing 'war on terror'. Sound familiar?" This is the first show ever to be staged at Amnesty's UK headquarters. Provocative theatre and an organisation like Amnesty might seem an odd pairing, but there's every reason to believe the charity's humanitarian message can reach a wider audience through the play. Dorfman himself is particularly happy Amnesty has chosen to host this play. "They're opening what we can hope will be a thrilling array of works with a play which demands that the audience question the world and how it's organised," he said.In the director's chair is Frank Tamburin, fresh off the plane from the US to oversee this project. He's keen to see the underlying issues acknowledged. "We're living in a strange climate these days," he said. "Sex and violence are endemic, so is an aggressive youth culture and angry, alienating music." Tamburin's concern is that, just like Dorfman's futuristic society, ours too is clamping down on freedoms in the name of "protection"; that CCTV cameras, chips in credit cards, even Oyster cards track us everywhere we go. "We're casting about for terrorists, and there's a violent bias against wrong-doers of any sort," he said. "Look at us: two towers fell down and we're all prepared to go along with this overprotection."It's the same story that threads through much of Dorfman's work. He's a man whose personal history outstrips even his most sensational fiction. Before the political coup in Chile on the eve of Augusto Pinochet's reign, Dorfman worked as a cultural consultant under Salvador Allende in La Moneda, the government offices in Santiago. On the day of the coup he was out of the office and, while his name was on the "emergency list" of staff, all of whom disappeared or were killed or tortured, Dorfman was never chased up. It was only afterwards that he discovered he'd been saved deliberately, in order to disseminate the truth of the event.Ariel Dorfman's Reader is at bottom an alarm call. It calls time on the complicit roles we play in the society we're part of and the repression by that society of the less powerful. "I hope that some of those who attend may be alerted to the dangers of censorship", he said, "and understand that when we silence those with whom we disagree, we are, ultimately, suffocating a secret part of ourselves."The play will be produced by Vulture Culture, a small company that started at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and went on to the Edinburgh Fringe and later London. They are fresh and stubbornly idealistic, perfect for this project. The end of the play leaves mysteries unresolved. Dorfman has said that it's because he wants the audience to feel "that the story on that stage has not yet ended, that how it really ends will depend on how we, who are also watching, act out our own lives". And that's why it's vital to see this unique, Amnesty-backed production. Not only is it a brilliant and rewarding play, but it is "an adventure of the mind", to use the words of Dorfman himself. He invites theatregoers to "clear their hearts along with their diaries and see something that is quite different from anything available on the London stage today".by Anna Bruce-Lockhart. Picture shows actors John Paton and Emily Sidonie May 2-5, 2007 Doors 7.30pm, Curtains at 8.00pm Amnesty International Human Rights Action Centre, Shoreditch Nearest tube: Old Street (Northern Line) Tickets �10 Tickets available at online.

My London Your London is a cultural guide to the city, featuring theatre, gallery and museum reviews, as well as descriptions of historic sites. It is edited by Natalie Bennett, whose reviews can be found on Blogcritics under her own name, but also includes contributions by her friends, such as this one.

Theater Review: Under the Black Flag at Shakespeare's Globe

My London Your London — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 17:47:40 EDT

It is the Year of Our Lord sixteen hundred and forty-nine. The King of England has just been executed, beheaded by the “great robber” Cromwell, and the age of the Pirate is here! From the drinking dens of London, stretching out as far and wide as the Barbary Coast and the New World, Under the Black Flag tells the story of Long John Silver, the dastardly villain of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, in the days before he lost his leg and boarded the Hispaniola as a humble but conniving cook. Staged, aptly, at Shakespeare’s historic Globe Theatre on the banks of the Thames, as part of Dominic Dromgoole’s plans to intermingle new dramas with the classics, the audience is taken back through the generations like the retreating tide. And, though he’s writing in the modern day, playwright Simon Bent constructs a language that seems to reel back the hands of time to an age of pocket watches, spyglasses, and the Jolly Roger riding high on the Seven Seas. More than a fantasy-adventure like Stevenson’s Romantic tale of treasure and danger, Under the Black Flag depicts an ordinary man swept along by extraordinary circumstances. John Silver, unfortunate enough to earn the disfavour of the Lord Protector, is press-ganged away from his wife and daughter, for a life in the colonies, where he is later captured by pirates. Yet, this "extra dimension" of familial love, indicative of the literature in our caring, sharing times, is a weighty distraction from the adventure and storytelling that made Stevenson’s version such a classic. Despite this, Under the Black Flag is a little lightweight in the plot department, making the running time of just over three hours difficult to justify. However, we are treated to many rich characters, such as the colourful Sultan of Morocco (Joseph Marcell), his daughter Sula (Akiya Henry), a sumptuous performer who sparkled in every scene, and the vibrant slave Hamlet (Mo Sesay), who was expected to act in a rendition of Shakespeare’s tome for the benefit of slave traders. Unfortunately, these all overshadowed the performance of our pirate lead, played by Cal MacAninch, who, though at times masterfully interacted with and excited the audience, lacked the commanding presence on stage that his role demands. Naturally we expected to learn how he was christened “Long”, and to learn of how he lost a leg, but Under the Black Flag also rewards us with backgrounds on Billy Bones (Paul Rider), whose map started the original treasure hunt, and One-eyed (latterly simply Blind) Pew, played by Trevor Fox. Most disappointingly, though, we don’t learn how the bounty got to Treasure Island, surely a more substantial issue to the prelude of the original pirate novel than being told Long John was once a family man.An enjoyable and well-oiled production that ran as smoothly as the ships that sailed the Seven Seas beneath the feared skull and crossbones insignia, Under the Black Flag is pure pantomime in the summertime, as it casts off the shackles of the stage boundaries to interact with the audience. This is a show more for the tourist than the serious theatre-goer, but it is a pleasant night out in wonderful surroundings.By Jonathan GrantThe theatre, with online booking.

Theater Review: Woyzeck at the Barbican

My London Your London — Fri, 7 Jul 2006 05:07:15 EDT

Returning to the Barbican after its sell-out success during the Young Genius season, Vestuport Theatre Company’s production of Georg Bűchner’s unfinished masterpiece Woyzeck, which charts the downfall of one of life’s erstwhile survivors. The eponymous hero earns a crust, and nothing more, as servant to the brash Captain. Additionally, he is forced to allow the sadistic Doctor to perform medically dubious experiments on his body and mind. His poverty makes Woyzeck meek. His social standing makes him amoral in the eyes of the Captain, and “nothing more than a dog” to the Doctor, which in turn perpetuates Woyzeck’s timidity to the oppression he suffers and his appearance of stupidity. Yet, the Doctor and Captain are known only by their titles. They have no proper names. It is they who lack humanity, compassion, and morality. They manipulate Woyzeck for their own benefit, not for any social gain, and their own strict moralities prevent them from seeing Woyzeck’s deeper good. They berate him. But Woyzeck can bear all this, and does so with a proud, if somewhat withdrawn dignity, because he shares a love with the angelic, Disney-styled princess Marie. So, when he discovers she is having an affair with a well-to-do Drum Major, “a Man and not a Monkey”, as the new lover cruelly taunts Woyzeck, his life spirals out of control and leads to a last love-crazed, fanatically paranoid act of despair for which he does not understand the consequences; he’s seemingly a man driven mad by obsession. A retelling of Bűchner’s much-interpreted but incomplete work, based on the real life story of Johann Christian Woyzeck, who was hanged in Leipzig, Germany, in 1824, Gísli Őrn Gardasson’s adaptation is brave and modern while still maintaining the essence of this tragic love story. Men in Black-style agents, intent on keeping Woyzeck from his beau, Elvis-cross-Barry White serenaders charm the love from the heart of Marie into the hands of our protagonist, and magical roses that fall from the sky bolt upright into the ground, creating an aura of Hollywood – a slightly tongue in cheek, very sophisticated-cool Hollywood. Trapeze artistry and rope-gymnastics add carnival flair to this macabre tale of sexual betrayal, and the huge pipeworks of the factory and massive water tank, which stretches the length of the stage, provide apt and versatile settings that are well worked by all members of the cast. It is firework razzmatazz, sparked by the genius of Nick Cave and fellow Bad Seed Warren Ellis, who wrote the sometime-melodic love symphony with the wonderfully contrasting sometime-Heavy Metal score as the story twists and the knife in Woyzeck’s heart turns. Yet, unlike so many similar efforts, this razzmatazz is used to enhance, and not substitute the exquisiteness of the writing and the substance of a plot. The script is full of beautiful, if at times macabre, one-liners and these are punctuated by cutting ditties. Perhaps, at times, some scenes fail to reach the fast-paced and emotionally charged levels of others, whilst at other times the content in some of the high-energy scenes may be a little too close to the edge of the comfort zone for other members of the audience. But this is a minor criticism and will by no means have spoilt your experience by the time you see the red stilettos of Marie pushing against the glass tank in a final act of despair. Get tickets for the hottest show in town if you still can!by Jonathan Grant

Theater Review: This to This at the Southwark Theatre, South London

My London Your London — Mon, 29 May 2006 08:52:53 EDT

Life. One minute it's going fabulously, and the next, without warning, it's falling apart in front of your eyes and you're both powerless to stop it and oblivious to it until it's too late. That's the situation in which Drew McKay finds himself in Jackie Kane's compassionate drama This to This, now playing at the Union Theatre. Drew (Scott Ainslie) has more blessings than most; a good job and a happy home life. Until, that is, his girlfriend's mother, Peggy (played with a compassionate grace by Rosalie Jorda), is struck with dementia. Unable to fend for herself any more, her daughter Jen (Jackie Kane) dutifully quits her job to look after her. However, the emotional burden this puts on her and her relationship with Drew, and the financial burden of having to live as a single-income family, soon begins to show.What unfolds is a sad and touching portrayal of one couple's walk down a rocky path to break-up when circumstances get in the way. More than that, Drew and Jen, supported by the sexy Rachel (Melanie Gray), Drew's good friend and boss, Phil Brooks (Simon Anderson), and his wife Nicky (Chandrika Chevli), are an allegory. In This to This they begin as the couple mastering life. But it soon becomes obvious that all the "big" decisions they thought they were making, about life, work, kids, even their own relationship, were being made for them by coincidence, chance, and habit. This to This will resonate with its audience because of its grounding in everyday life. The characters really bloom as it becomes obvious they all have problems and foibles of their own, each having weaved tangled webs, again more by circumstance than design, over the thirty-something years of their respective lifetimes. And, much like any group of friends, the interaction between them is warm and touching, and generally well played out, if, on occasion, slightly wooden and over-scripted. However, what this play lacks is any really standout scenes, signature moments, or cameo performances. As it was, rather like the dementia-ridden Peggy whose portrayal by Jorda was arguably the most captivating of all, there was little excitement or activity of note. Kane, and the director, Robert Wolstenholme, have settled for the safe option, preferring the melancholy but slightly run-of-the-mill to something a little out of the ordinary. That's a pity because the script is anything but senile and the overall concept is well founded. Yet, when it has come to transferring that to the stage, it is obvious something was lost in translation. For example, the scenes where Phil is caught over-indulging with the mis-pleasures of the Internet by his wife, or any one of the numerous arguments between Drew and Jen or Phil and Drew, seem to just peter out rather than reach any form of climax. This adds to the overall melancholic feel of hopelessness within their lives, but doesn't add the all-important fizz to the performance, though the show is succinct enough never to slow to a crawl. It has to be said that a good, if somewhat steady, pace is maintained for the entire 80 minutes of running time. All in all then, This to This is a well-paced, well-written drama that is definitely worth a visit if you're a thirty-something yourself and want a douse of reality to put your own life in perspective. However, give it a miss if you're after fringe fun and escapist frolics. by Jonathan Grant The production continues at the Union Theatre until June 17. Bookings: 020 7261 9876.

Theater Review: Silverland at the Arcola

My London Your London — Tue, 23 May 2006 06:46:31 EDT

Silverland is set in the near future, in a time of global warming and impending apocalypse. London is in anarchy and the realisation of its Olympic dream is about to turn into a nightmare. Benjamin Davies charts the tales of some of those affected by this forthcoming doom and does so over the course of five ever-changing seasons, culminating in a final, frostbitten, spring.Five stories of two comic ravers, one stockbroker complete with feisty prostitute, one crazed scientist, one lonely and depressed fisherman's wife, and a photographer and his architect girlfriend make up the entirety of this play. Unfortunately, no intelligent or interesting storylines, no charm, and no real wit can be included in that rather unique mix; this play fizzles out long before our ravers are done dancing to their "phat choons."Instead, and while occasionally being 'treated' to the incidental weaving of storylines, we are left with a mix of eclectic characterisations that neither develop beyond their initial obnoxiousness nor have sufficient depth of material to develop at all. Perhaps Davies should have concentrated on fewer stories and fewer characters and attempted to develop these to give greater depth to each and the production as a whole, as it seems he has busied up the cast to compensate for a lack of any real material and substance to his over-characterised city folk.What's more, another tale of apocalypse (albeit displaying homegrown devastation in a timescale that allows us to conveniently play on London's successful Olympic bid) does little to add to what is an increasingly serious issue. Because of its complete lack of hope amongst the despair, the play does even less to play out a message, as is somewhere no doubt clumsily intended, of every person's environmental responsibility.No saving grace, but the production itself was executed admirably for the first performances of the Lacuna Theatre Company. The stage was well trod, aesthetically pleasant, and intelligently arranged. I particularly liked the projected art works of a decrepit London, pictures from photographer Gabriel's exhibition we later learn. Nor did any of the cast let themselves down given the material at hand.Equally, I enjoyed the friendly and intimate space of the Arcola Theatre in East London, (winner of several recent accolades including the 2006 Time Out Live Award) for its distinctive and gritty stage, punctured with steel girders. I look forward to going again, but to watch something considerably better.by Jonathan GrantThe production continues until June 10 at the Arcola. (Online booking).

Theatre Review: Lie Back in Anger at the Union Theatre, South London

My London Your London — Sun, 7 May 2006 13:49:32 EDT

When Jimmy Porter first burst on to the stage in Look Back in Anger, his ranting and railing against the harshness and contradictions of life in 1950s England proved impossible to ignore. The angry young man created by John Osborne was credited with ushering in a new era not just in the arts but in attitudes to authority and youth. The shock at the presence on stage of an ironing board -- which kept Jimmy's meek, middle-class wife busy -- illustrates how far art was removed from reality.Five decades on, in a neat role-reversal, it is the husband who fusses over the ironing board in Lie Back in Anger, while the wife holds forth on the injustices and impossibilities of life. But does this angry young woman force us to consider uncomfortable truths about ourselves and our society? Well, she certainly deserves a hearing, but ultimately Jimmy Porter's 21st-century female alter-ego commands not so much attention as irritation. Bridget O'Donnell was inspired by the 50th anniversary of Osborne's play to examine whether a modern woman can be as uncompromising as Jimmy and whether the allegedly revolutionary decades that followed the original have brought genuine change. The problem with her play lies perhaps with the successors to the kitchen-sink drama: the soap opera and reality TV show. In both the participants, real and imagined, examine their lives in minute, sometimes painful, often tediously repetitive, detail. Jenny, O'Donnell's anti-heroine, while keenly observed, rarely rises about this level.The play opens, like Look Back, with the main character holding forth over the newspapers to husband Jimmy and best friend Kirsten. Sadly for Jenny, they are more interested in doing the ironing, watching Four Weddings and a Funeral and making tea than sharing her angst and reviving the passion of antiwar marches. Her volume increases as she struggles to make herself heard above their somnambulance, or is it contentment? "Is this what we will teach our children - how to sleepwalk?" she asks. But all are rudely awakened by the arrival of Rufus, Jimmy's public school pal, on a break from his government post in Moscow.Jenny is repelled by this man who is "like a walking Nuts magazine" but he is also compelling because he gives her something she craves: a reaction. Instead of taking cover from her explosive opinionating he fires back his own arsenal of prejudice and invective. He describes their verbal tussles as "oral S&M - I don't know whether to kiss or kick you". In a convincingly brutish ending to the first half of the production, Rufus shows that Jenny provokes a physical reaction in him as well as a mental one.The fallout from this shocking encounter is not exactly what we would expect in the second half, which is more satisfying than the first because Jenny's wearing monologues are better balanced by the other characters' dialogue. With Jimmy gone on a possibly permanent visit to his family, Jenny is at the ironing board while Rufus has bagged her place as armchair critic. Jenny has not succumbed entirely to domestic serfdom; her zealous vacuuming proves to be a ploy to reclaim her chair and newspaper from Rufus, much to the approval of Kirsten, who has been galvanised by his behaviour into speaking out herself - and far more effectively than her friend . What Jenny does succumb to is the notion of least said, soonest mended. For all her verbal pyrotechnics, she proves unable to speak out when it really matters - and in the process loses those dearest to her as well as the chance of a new future with a new life. In her mixed-up space, no one can hear her scream.Jenny Hurren is convincingly restless as her namesake character, bedevilled by student debt and a mind-numbing job in a call centre as well as by her dreams of what might be. Her rapidly delivered monologues sometimes make one wish for a pause button. Natasha Magigi, apparently struggling with a throat problem on the night we attended, plays the friend seemingly more interested in wearing killer boots and reading Heat magazine than changing the world, though actually more clued up that the over-informed Jenny. Alastair Kirton, as the husband, doesn't convince us of his affluent upbringing but is affecting when struggling to comprehend when his wife reveals the full cost of Rufus's attack on her. Pearl Marsland puts in a caricature performance as Jimmy's mother, although the wardrobe department have given her shoes that are definitely what not to wear for a Kensington dame. The standout performance comes from Theo Herdman as Rufus, his vocal and physical presence immediately telling us that no good can come of him.O'Donnell, a TV producer and director, has woven plenty of good lines and up-to-the-minute references into the script; it already has an almost achingly period feel. "You're Primark, not Prada, in the lay league," Rufus tells Jenny. The book hurled in anger at him proves to The Da Vinci Code. But she is better at writing bitterness, the characters sounding unconvincing in their admittedly youthful attempts at expressing tenderness. In the end, we are not unhappy to leave Jenny to her fate, for we feel that she is lying back in a bed largely of her own making. By Teresa Merrigan Lie Back in Anger, presented by Batteries Not Included and the Union Theatre, runs at the Union Theatre until May 20, Tuesdays-Saturdays, 7.30pm. Box office: 020 72619876.

Theater Review: Trad at The Bush

My London Your London — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 06:51:43 EDT

There comes a time in a man's life when he begins to question what it was all for, what his legacy will be, and whether he will go down in his family's folklore as a great man or another name on the genealogical tree. That this time came to Da, (played wonderfully by Frankie McCafferty), as his son was about to celebrate "having a 100 years upon him," and that the answer, Da thought, was the felling of said tree, are the comic spurs to the enormously witty Trad, now at The Bush Theatre in West London. In the fast-paced opening dialogue, poor put-upon son Thomas (the brilliant Peter Gowen), browbeaten by his father's angst, reluctantly admits to having a son some 70 years previous to "a girl da -- a girl! a human lady," and thus continuing the family line. So, with that, and the connecting of Da's wooden leg to his shell-like bones, the journey begins, and Da and son shuffle a geriatric Irish jig, to the fiddler music, across the open-grave set they so convincingly already have one foot inside. Set in Ireland at some time in the present, the two, known to the villagers as "one of (them) who was the other one's father", trample across Irish bog, stealing apples and pelting them at trains with the use of a hurley stick and getting into other mischief along the way. Their task is a difficult one, for "the child had no name, and the mother had no family name". Indeed, the only information they have is that the mother's name was Mary, and the child would have been born some 70 years hence that month. But in true Last of the Summer Wine-cross-Father Ted fashion, and with the aid of shopkeeper Sal (David Pearse) and the drunk and cantankerous Father Rice (Pearse again), they go about their task diligently until they have a name; Thomas... after his father. With a name in their hand and some nous in their head, they get an address; an address that requires a further journey to an island, and another misdemeanour not befitting their matured years. Then comes, perhaps, tragedy, or at least a fitting end. This is a multi-faceted production. There are, naturally for an Irish comedy, some tongue-in-cheek biblical references, (the miracle son born to Mary), and the almost obligatory anti-English remarks as the characters try to assert their Irishness over one another: " I was Irish last night... I sang a ballad, then fought a man... an English man." But all this is light-humoured and, due to the way Gowen, McCafferty and, to a slightly lesser extent, Pearse, deliver their lines, is very funny indeed. Equally, there are approving nods in ode to the great Monty Python sketches, most notably when Da and Father Rice recount the story of Manus, "the hardest-working man the land ever knew," who ploughed, harvested, and tilled until he was nothing but a tooth, and then still managed to carve his own headstone until the following autumn he died due to erosion. (No prizes for seeing parallels with the Story of the Black Knight.) Trad is a beautiful story about fathers and sons cleverly written and packed with Mark Doherty's dry sense of humour, intelligently funny observations, and clever witticisms. The cast members are not only convincing centurions, they also have impeccable comic timing and carry their roles off with some aplomb. The production and design, though minimal, are executed perfectly so as to benefit completely the play without unnecessarily distracting from what is an incredibly funny and moving story. Deservedly a winner of the 2004 BBC Radio Drama Award, and well adapted, this really is a must-see, to be sure. Trad continues at The Bush until April 29. Online booking is available. Reviewed by Jonathan Grant and Philippa Stewart

Theater Review: Gaudeamus or A Very Liberal Education, at the Arcola, Dalston

My London Your London — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 20:45:04 EST

What if no one had the legal right to refuse any person's request for any sexual act? Would this new law produce a new breed of equality? These are the questions at the centre of Gaudeamus, the new play by Peter Morris, set on a Vermont campus where students make and enforce their own laws. Written chiefly as a series of monologues by three characters, we are invited to leave prejudice aside and watch this play with an open mind to the possibilities. The audience enter the production at the Arcola in East London as Lynette (Chipo Chung) pauses between pillars to read a book, self-consciously and unconvincingly. In only a few moments she will come forward to talk directly to us, introducing herself and the audience as strangers "because that's what we are". Lynette is intended, according to Morris's script, to come across as "confident, charismatic and breathtakingly intelligent" but instead she seemed twitchy and immature. The pace at which Chung delivers her monologues seems set in the first few sentences and her character is equally unmoving. She is the force behind the social experiment, but starts out, and remains, ignorant of the darker effects of her new "law".Had Chung played the role with less enthusiastic naivety, the plot would have been a little more believable. Brad (Travis Oliver) and Helen(Kika Markham) achieved noticeably stronger performances. Brad is a golden retriever-esque college kid, straight out of the American teen college movie, obsessed with sex and completely self-absorbed. Helen, although a 68-year-old virgin with an apparently liberal background, was played in a way that this bizarre sexual anomaly didn't distract from the composed Professor of Classics who enjoys conjugating verbs in bed. Having opened the play with a request to the audience not judge to, not to form stereotypes and not to expect the expected, I was disappointed in the cardboard cut-outs Morris presented throughout this play. Not only the main characters (blond jock, black radical and witty prim professor), but all the other characters mentioned seemed to have been observed from such a distance that their individual characteristics had been lost; the ugly Goth, the confused gay and many more, but for me the most shocking, a woman who has had a double mastectomy who is portrayed as completely sexless now that she has no breasts. Each sexual encounter seems only to reinforce these stereotypes. Perhaps these characters could have been portrayed by the cast with more individuality, but it would be hard to overcome the fundamental flaw in the play, a weakness that requires the story told in monologues as any dialogue between characters would cause this "what if" fantasy to crumble. Lynette claims to be interested in the possibilities that lie in the moment before you kiss someone for the first time; she says it is then that "you can be anything". The logic being that if there was no prejudice, if everyone was alive to the possibilities of kissing anyone they wanted, then all of us really could do and be anything. It seems a little foolish to point out that this idea just won't work; but it seems someone should have. Having passed this new "law" the campus becomes a place where anyone can exercise power over others. They cry, bully and mentally scar fellow students and then leave, but almost without admitting that their plan was flawed. This play lacked the direction needed to make it really funny or really interesting - it floated between sex jokes and revolution. I held myself open to the "possibilities" but nothing happened. Even the ending was disappointingly straight-laced. Sex was never going to be the great equalizer, not between men and women, not between young and old, and it can't force improvements in race relations, religious relations or self-image. The acting in general was good, particularly in the bringing out the humour in the script, but the premise of this play just wasn't strong enough to take one and a half hours of exploration. By Jeannine Inglis-Hall The production continues until April 15. The Arcola, with online booking.

Theater Review: Animal Farm: A Fairy Story

My London Your London — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 00:55:48 EST

When George Orwell wrote his satirical masterpiece Animal Farm, I doubt very much that he had in mind anything like the theatrical adaptation by Ian Woodridge that has just opened in London. Yet, while this piece firmly has its origins in that great work, it is to the credit of Woodridge, the director Freda O'Byrne, and the rest of the cast and crew that this mix of narration, performance drama, and gospel choir provides an original contribution to Orwell's already substantial legacy.Walking into the Courtyard, one is immediately transported into an agricultural age. Flanked by a cast of a dozen or so, wearing workman-like blue dungarees who, without a feather or piece of fur in sight, represent the revolution-aspiring animals of Manor Farm, we nod approvingly at Old Major's (Julia Eve) dying words of liberty and equality. Likewise, when the animals defeat Mr. Jones et al at the Battle of the Cowshed, to run the farm on egalitarian lines and effectively take charge of their own destinies, we rejoice. And, in parallel to the Russian revolution, when the pigs, corrupted by power, establish a new tyranny under the impressive Napoleon (Justin Melican) and persuasive Squealer (played by the superb David Ajala), we despair and question how it could have gone so wrong.For this, Woodridge offers an interesting deviation from many versions of this modern-day classic, which tend to present the story from what is essentially a socialist viewpoint; that the system is good, but that individuals are corruptible. Instead, in Woodridge's version, the cast portray a subtle revisionist distinction; that it is not the fault of the ruling classes for wanting and taking more luxury, but rather it is the fault of the uneducated and blindly trusting classes, represented by the hard-working Boxer (Dennis Ducane), for allowing themselves to be oppressed.Yet, in O'Byrne's words, this performance "set out to try to avoid heavy-handed political comment", and it is this dedicated approach to story-telling -- after all, Animal Farm is on one level a fairy story -- that gives the production its special charm. From the goosebump-prickling violin accompaniment to Old Major's rallying cry, to Clovers' (Vanessa Edwards) ghostly, experience-tainted renditions of the revolutionary marching songs, and through the lively interspersions of the blackbird Moses, this show has bags of character. And, what's more, it is energetic enough to convey it, helped along ably by the bellowing voice of the storyteller, Martyn Hill.If there is a criticism, and this is by no means the perfect production; at times the performance was over-indulgent. The Battle of the Cowshed, in which the Jones' are driven out, is chaotic and, for a moment, slightly confusing (but then, couldn't we argue that all wars are chaotic and confusing?). Equally, the scene where the pigs finally confirm their betrayal as "more equal than others", with alcohol and mocking, was also unnecessarily drawn-out, lasting long after the point was established. Yet, conversely, other aspects were not emphasised enough; such as the tyranny of the canine secret police force, which survived with just a fleeting mention.However, when sufficient attention was placed on the design and overall effect of a scene, this was invariably carried off well. Seldom in theatre, on whatever scale, has there been a more realistic storm than the one which blew down the great economic hope that was the windmill. And, it is this that creates a belief that, with a bit more polishing around the staging, and greater attention on the technical aspects of lighting and design, that this play can hit greater heights. In all, a rough diamond but well worth seeing.by Jonathan Grant and Nirmal Grewal The production continues until April 9. Links: online booking; phone - 0870 899 3338; the production poster.