theatre - showing at a stage near you
The Boyfriend
Last year's triumphant revival of Sandy Wilson's affectionate 1920s pastiche returns with Rachel Jerram reprising her well-connected flapper in a finishing school on the French Riviera and Ian Talbot signing off as the artistic director with his endearing old buffer declaring (in song), "It's never too late to fall in love." Paul Farnsworth's design is a riot of blue parasols on the beach at Nice, and the formidable Margaret Tyzack joins the cast to keep tabs on Talbot. Bill Deamer's choreography is a wonder of the London theatre world. A small masterpiece is restored in late summer sunshine (or so we hope).
Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park, NW1, 08700 601 811,
openairtheatre.org
Forbidden
Forbidden is a Folies Bergere-style cabaret with a stage full of cerise lingerie, musclemen and dance gymnasts. The setting is a big red boudoir fitted with mirrors, laser lights, velvet swags and the en suite circus properties of a ring master, trapeze artists and contortionists. There is room, too, for a Balinese temple with a parade of geishas, a version of the brothel scene in Sweet Charity and a Spanish sevillana with much foot stomping and pouting, all accompanied by a soundtrack of unrecognisable dance and pop music. The astounding costumes are studded with diamante and bristling with feathers. I prefer the ice show at the neighbouring rink, but Forbidden is fun, -ish.
Globe Theatre, Pleasure Beach, Blackpool, 0870 444 5588,
pleasurebeach
blackpool.com
The Merchant of Venice
In this engaging, intelligent production by Rebecca Gatward, Venice reaches out with a Rialto bridge and a gondola jetty into the Globe theatre's pit, where the groundlings muster. Shylock's daughter Jessica makes her escape in a bustling carnival procession of masks and torches; the casket scene, where Portia's suitors ponder the relative attractions of gold, silver and lead, is played on the apron stage while the heiress spies on them from the musicians' gallery. John McEnery's Shylock is a lean, sharp-witted and husky-voiced businessman and Kirsty Besterman's confident Portia is both priggish and cunning without losing our sympathy.
Shakespeare's Globe, Bankside, SE1, 020 7401 9919, shakespeares-globe.org
Saint Joan
Marianne Elliott's new production of Shaw's masterpiece could not be less of a dusty old bore if it tried. The fifth NT show in the £10 ticket Travelex season, it packs a good visual punch, set on a heaving platform on a constant revolve to invoke ecclesiastical showdowns, the siege of Orleans, the trial of the peasant soldier girl and her celestial transfiguration. Anne-Marie Duff, whose television work includes The Virgin Queen and Shameless, is brilliant: fresh and eager, without strain or piety. And Shaw's play about religious martyrs with a surfeit of conviction is suddenly scary.
National Theatre, South Bank, SE1, 020 7452 3000, nationaltheatre.org.uk
How the Other Half Loves
Alan Ayckbourn's early comedy of class warfare, adulterous alibis and marital fall-out is one of the most innovative popular plays ever written: two dinner parties on consecutive nights in different locations are played out simultaneously, with the humiliated guests common to both events swivelling on chairs between their separate hosts. Alan Strachan's beautifully cast and acted touring revival for the Peter Hall Company restores the ensemble rhythms and musical hilarity of the dialogue and situations. Malvern this week, resuming in Cambridge the week after next - that is, from September 10.
Malvern Theatre, Grange Road, 01684 569256
Arts Theatre, St Edward’s Passage, Cambridge, 01223 578933
Rafta, Rafta...
Nicholas Hytner's production is a riot of bhangra dancing, family squabbles, late-night whisky drinking and an arm-wrestling contest in which Dad humiliates his newly wedded but still virginal son. Impotency and sexual ambivalence rear their heads in Ayub Khan-Din's beautiful Asian re-working of Bill Naughton's 1963 Bolton comedy, All in Good Time, with added cultural piquancy in the different aspirations of Dad, who works in a factory, and Atul, who works in the local cinema. Even if only ironically, Bollywood beckons for the hapless young couple whose first few weeks together are a comedy nightmare. Lovely stuff.
National Theatre, South Bank, SE1, 020 7452 3000, nationaltheatre.org.uk
The Hothouse
Harold Pinter's disturbing, Kafkaesque comedy is set in a government institution which resembles a 1950s secondary school. It's snowing outside, and the white-tiled corridors are echoing with sighs and groans. Indeed, it's Christmas in the cheerless gulag where Colonel Roote sees his job as one of instilling confidence. His subordinates, Gibbs and Lush, are jostling for position, while Lamb is led to the slaughter, or at least to the soundproof room where they fit you out with electrodes. Pinter's second, comparatively unknown play proves a lividly funny delight, with stand-out performances by Stephen Moore, Lia Williams and Paul Ritter.
National Theatre, South Bank, SE1, 020 7452 3000,
nationaltheatre.org.uk
Footloose
The summer craze for nostalgic dance musicals takes off and gets down once more with the return of this high-energy hop-fest about a Chicago lad turning a Mid-West community up on its toes after the local Reverend has banned high school high jinks. Dean Pitchford wrote music, book and lyrics for the 1984 movie, which featured Kevin Bacon as the messianic hoofer, and this 1998 Broadway stage version stands up well against Grease, Fame and Flashdance, if that's your groove. Karen Bruce's production is a primary-coloured splash of rock, jive and pelvis-pumping that only a curmudgeon could resist.
Playhouse, Northumberland Avenue, WC2, 0870 060 6631,
footloosethemusical.co.uk
Absurdia
Short, sharp and funny, Absurdia is an attractive mix of two old surrealist plays by N F Simpson, A Resounding Tinkle and Gladly Otherwise, and one brilliant new one by Michael Frayn, The Crimson Hotel. Simpson's weird and Goonish humour is followed by Frayn's philosophical spoof on a Feydeau farce in which an actress and her playwright lover - "How could any woman resist your stage directions?" - struggle in the desert with non-existent stage properties and the arrival of the actress's invisible husband. "Shimmer," cries the distraught thespian, shaking her ample bosom. "We're a mirage." Lovely stuff. Closes September 8.
Donmar Warehouse, Earlham Street, WC2, 0870 060 6624, donmarwarehouse.com
Little Shop of Horrors
It's 'Suddenly Seymour' all over again as this 1983 spoof rock musical about a man-eating plant on Skid Row spreads its tentacles into the West End. Matthew White's Menier Chocolate Factory production stars Sheridan Smith and Paul Keating as the lovelorn losers who feed the maw-like mandible until she swallows them whole, while Alistair McGowan is the sadistic dentist (he's the leader of the plaque, natch) and Mike McShane is the bluesy voice deep inside the omnivore. Howard Ashman's smart lyrics and Alan Menken's raunchy music are great when the sound system lets you enjoy them. Ends September 8.
New Ambassadors Theatre, West St, WC2 theambassadors
theatre.co.uk
Much Ado About Nothing
Will theirs be a marriage made in heaven? Will sparks fly and stars dance? The odds must be loaded in favour of an inspired pairing of Zoe Wanamaker and Simon Russell Beale in Nicholas Hytner's new production of Shakespeare's great comedy, previously directed at the National by Franco Zeffirelli (Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens) and Peter Gill (Penelope Wilton and Michael Gambon). I can already hear myself purring with pleasure at this first in a new Shell-sponsored series of classic drama. The designs in the Olivier are by Vicki Mortimer, music by Rachel Portman. Previews from December 10.
National Theatre, South Bank, SE1, 020 7452 3000,
nationaltheatre.org.uk
Rent
This wonderful Broadway rock musical by Jonathan Larson, based on Puccini's La Boheme, has twice failed in the West End, but we are now promised a conceptual "remix" by William Baker and Steve Anderson, the "celebrated creative team" behind Kylie Minogue. The dynamic duo threaten to cast aside grunge and guitars and "take on the 21st Century". Wow. Rent has at least ten great numbers, but it does rather rely on its specific social setting in Greenwich Village to make any sense. We shall see. There's a new first-come-first-served £30 ticket price policy, and Craig Stein, Francesca Jackson, Jay Webb and Leon Lopez have lead roles. Previews from October 2.
Duke of York's, St Martin's Lane, WC2, 0870 060 6623,
myspace.com/
rentremixed
The Burial At Thebes
Seamus Heaney's adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone lends new energy to the story of a tyrannical ruler forbidding his niece, the daughter of Oedipus, to bury her brother who has died in a bitter civil war. This timeless tragedy of an individual in conflict with the state, of divine law at odds with common humanity, was given fresh impetus by the invasion of Iraq, though Heaney is too smart a poet to underline the obvious. His verse is imbued with Irish lamentation and Anglo-Saxon flintiness. Lucy Pitman-Wallace's production moves on first to the Barbican (September 18-29) and then the Oxford Playhouse in October.
Nottingham Playhouse, Wellington Circus, Nottingham, 0115 941 9419,
nottingham
playhouse.co.uk
Reviews by Michael Coveney
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 30, 2007
