Tag / British theatre

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Facing Up

Clint Dyer and Roy Williams, Death of England: Face to Face (directed by Clint Dyer, National Theatre film, 2021)

One of the unexpected delights of lockdown culture was a screening of Death of England: Delroy, in which Delroy (Michael Balogun) recounts his arrest on the way to see the birth of his daughter and his subsequent electronic tagging. It was funny and gripping and anger-inducing and intelligent, and based on a play closed after press night. It was also a sequel to Death of England, in which Delroy’s friend Michael (Rafe Spall) discusses his relationship with his father, Alan, itself based upon a ten minute short.

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All the Stage’s a World: 2020 Theatre

So I managed a few theatre trips before lockdown — when I with the rest of the world switched to YouTube and National Theatre Live (some of which are chronicled here). The audiences at A Number and The Visit were notably thin, although bad reviews for the latter perhaps didn’t help. I also narrowly missed seeing the reworked A Dolls House, which was pulled as I arrived at Waterloo Station about two hours before curtain up.

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The Hand of Dog

Alan Bennett, The Outside Dog (directed by Nadia Fall, Br/dge Theatre)
Alan Bennett, The Hand of God (directed by Jonathan Kent, Br/dge Theatre)

bridgeI’m not sure that I ever saw the second season of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads monologues and I certainly haven’t seen The Bridge’s TV remakes. Probably, I should. Continue reading →

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Hard to Beat

David Hare, Beat the Devil (directed by Nicholas Hytner, Br/dge Theatre)

beat the devilSo, here we are again, but with a piece of theatre before a piece of theatre – a specific entry time (ignored in practice), some kind of thermal imaging camera to detect The Plague, an auditorium all but stripped of chairs, a stage with a chair and a desk and little else… Continue reading →

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Supercalimilesjuppisticexpialidocious

James Kettle, The Life I Lead (Directed by Didi Hopkins and Selina Cadell; Park Theatre)

Earlier this year, Mile Jupp vanished from chairing The News Quiz — I wondered if he might be filming something, but I reckon he must have been rehearsing and touring this one man play. This brings him full circle for me, as I suspect I first paid attention to him with his stand up/one man show about gatecrashing cricket commentary. I don’t think I’d connected him with Rev yet.
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Who the Hell is Alys?

Lucinda Coxton, Alys, Always (directed by Nicholas Hytner, Br/dge Theatre)

D5EA0553-E400-4DCC-BD19-426DEAB85513The Bridge has fallen into a pattern of producing three kinds of play: a premiere from a successful playwright, a Shakespeare blockbuster and an adaptation of a novel by a woman. This is the latter, from a novel by former Guardian writer Harriet Lane, a novel I confess I haven’t read.
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If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years

Barney Norris, Nightfall (Director: Laurie Sansom, Br/dge Theatre)

So the incredible success of the in-the-round production of Julius Caesar was evidentially not enough to tempt people into trying a new play in a thrust layout; I was upgraded from Gallery 3 to Gallery 2. Barney Norris is a name I know but I’ve not read his two novels nor seen his earlier plays, which are clearly carving out chamber dramas in the Hampshire/Wiltshire region. There is a rural beauty, if you try hard enough to see it, but aspiration points to Southampton or the Basingstoke of Despond. (The bright lights of London, the Carole King musical and the last train home are also in reach, but you suspect that’s a rip off.)
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