Philip Ridley is that rare writer whose work alternately snares decadent adult and innocent child. PG to certificate 18 with nothing in between. Poisoned fairytales, gangland raptures, quests for the hungry heart and avid imagination. The Pitchfork Disney (1991) is an early Ridley play that marks his territory with alleycat assurance. Adult orphan twins, Presley and Haley (George Bagley and … [Read more...]
Bring me the head of Norman St John Stevas
What’s the point of Parliament? If you watched the BBC thriller Apple Tree Yard, you’ll know it’s to accommodate Emily Watson’s illicit shag in the cellars, igniting a slow-burning fuse of suspicion and self-deceit. It might seem an undignified function for the mothership of democracy – but looking through our fingers at the real world, we see the British government demand a Parliamentary rubber … [Read more...]
12 Plays of Xmas: 11 The Illusion by Tony Kushner/Corneille
Are we all excited about Angels in America? Yes we bloody are. It’s coming to the National Theatre this spring with a dream cast and some of us have been slavering for months. Booking my seats last week, stuck in an over-subscribed online ticket queue, was a rollercoaster of fanboy emotions. So, it’s time to get in our pre-season Kushner training. I saw – loved ¬– the sprawling, brawling The … [Read more...]
12 Plays of Xmas: 10 Thieves Carnival by Jean Anouilh
I’ve just seen the trailer for La La Land (again), and now I’d like some of that at the theatre, please. Colourful, romantic, witty, blithe, with just enough melancholy to cut the sugar icing. Is that too much to ask? As previously discussed, it is if you judge by this series of posts. So I was charmed charmed charmed to find Thieves Carnival (Le Bal des voleurs, 1932) by Jean Anouilh in this … [Read more...]
12 Plays of Xmas: 9 The Town Fop by Aphra Behn
‘Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead.’ WH Auden speaks true – one of the pleasures of this little project has been sitting down with the past. Sometimes, however, it’s like sharing a meal, some dishes of which taste familiar, while others are so completely baffling you don’t know whether they’re a starter, a pudding or a peculiar kind of medicine. Such is The Town … [Read more...]
12 Plays of Xmas: 8 Ecstasy by Mike Leigh
A friend points out that this hasn’t been the cheeriest of series. Few hugs and precious few puppies. This may say something about me, or my bookshelves. And prospects for joviality don’t seem much brighter with today’s choice, despite its title. Ecstasy (1979) by playwright turned (mostly) filmmaker Mike Leigh. A long night in a cramped bedsit with a heroine who is more despairing than … [Read more...]
12 Plays of Xmas: 7 Egor Bulychev by Gorky
I’ve seen a lot of Chekhov. I mean, a lot. Last year, I marvelled at Uncle Vanya at the Almeida and spent a day with the National Theatre’s Young Chekhov trilogy. I can almost sing along with the Three Sisters and Cherry Orchard, even bits of Ivanov. The characters’ disconsolate eccentricity is a wardrobe I recognise; their world on the shift feels familiar. So it’s good to remember that … [Read more...]
12 Plays of Xmas: 6 Pal Joey by O’Hara, Rodgers & Hart
Book trouble – it’s the curse of the musical. One of my most slaveringly anticipated shows of the past winter was David Bowie’s Lazarus, but the book by Enda Walsh was an embarrassment of portent, messily motivated and thumpingly framed. Similarly, some of the zippiest musical choreography I saw this year was in the retooled Half A Sixpence, but the rancidly snobbish book by Julian Fellowes made … [Read more...]
12 Plays of Xmas: 5 Alkestis by Euripides/Anne Carson
For most of these 12 Plays of Xmas, I can imagine how they might be staged, what tone the cast and production team might hope to achieve. But Alkestis… Alkestis is just weird. Euripides’ wrigglesome play was, according to translator Anne Carson, programmed after three tragedies in the Athenian festival of 438BC. ‘It is not a satyr play,’ she says, ‘but neither is it clearly a tragedy or a … [Read more...]
12 Plays of Xmas: 4 The Roaring Girl by Middleton & Dekker
It’s pantomime season, which is as good a time as any to pay tribute to the fine British traditions of smutty humour, sexual confusion, homosexual panic and coming over a bit funny when you think about women’s legs. All of the above get a good working over in The Roaring Girl (1611), a Jacobean city comedy in which Thomases Middleton and Dekker fit a real-life gender renegade into a giddy mesh … [Read more...]