Miriam Gillinson: co-editor, theatre
Absurdly amusing kisses
Tovey and Winstone’s characters look like they long to be elsewhere. Tovey’s eyes dart about anxiously, constantly searching for something or someone else. Grace’s screeching laughter is far from a thing of a joy. And, even when the two kiss, it feels like they’re grappling about for a connection they cannot find.
A deliciously grotesque musical medley
A puppet with a penis for a head lurches, lazily, towards Punch. It’s an absurd image, like a Dali painting that’s learned to walk, but it is affecting and frightening too. Puppets might not have souls but, by God, do some of them look evil.
Landmines for the brain
Bubbling away in this cauldron of emotion and ideas, is the theme of homosexuality and exclusion. I have never before extracted such a concrete idea from one of Ridley’s plays, but this theme is impossible to ignore in Edward Dick’s clear-headed but head-spinning production.
Lost in a deluge of action
Harris throws in just enough sinister hints about this new nanny, and her oddly intimate knowledge of Hazel’s family, to keep these early encounters fizzing nicely. But despite these Ortonesque overtones, the atmosphere gradually flattens and the over-defined characters, with little room to develop, hit a dead end.
Young again
It isn’t only the transformation of this couple’s physical appearance that causes the breath to catch in one’s throat. This switch from sprightly to stumbling is painful enough – but it is the change in the way these two communicate that really impresses.
Naked execution
The world behind these frames is exhilaratingly fluid; tiny body parts flutter through the frames, heads jilt about independent of their bodies, clouds sink and feet jiggle. It’s like going to a Magritte exhibition, whilst hideously drunk, and it’s damn good fun.
Firmly on thin air
At one point, Thierrée brings a grey, paper-thin man to life simply by placing her own arm in his sleeve. ‘They’ talk, grope and dance together. And then, with one slip of her arm, this almost-nothing man is dead again. It’s a strange little scene and and quite frightening too; one lad was crying for his mummy, the night I watched.
Thrillingly nutty
Henry’s infectious incredulity – those massive eyes that role with such relish – emphasises the frantic, unfurling chaos around him. He also takes the edge off what can sometimes seem a cruel play. There’s a flurry of beatings here, as each Antipholus grows increasingly exasperated, but Henry’s fights never sting.
This tiny moment
This camp, Northern son could have turned into a ‘type’ but Billy continually surprises. His love for Dolly Parton, instead of being used as a vehicle for cheap gags, feels earnest and heart-felt: ‘They will look down on Dolly. People do!’
Stuttering and humble
The level of detail just isn’t here and grating inconsistencies emerge. A strong adaptation should bring new meaning to worn-out lines, but Rickson’s show actually renders many lines ridiculous. ‘The Royal bed’, ‘the kingdom contracted in woe’, ‘the war-like state’; all these references point to the awkwardness of the adaptation and, as we flinch, distance us from the production.
Unnatural endings
Shadows loom and smoke swirls, as Bartlett’s chaotic, dystopian vision comes to life. It is more than a little bit frightening. Just what haunts these characters at night? Why do they keep jolting weirdly? And why is a booming voice, which sounds like the Milk Tray lady turned bitter, warning us of sleepless nights?
‘Conflict is amaaaazing’
Amala whispers her words to her companion, who in turns translates. Sadhbh then questions Amala ‘directly’, but her words, again, must be translated by Mathilde. The layers of removal pile up on each other and we begin to understand the supreme effort required to break through these obstructions to communication and discover and disseminate the truth.
Accidents happen
Tiny incidents take on magnificent consequences, acting as a vessel for all that unspoken anger and despair. A lost Radio Times stimulates a blazing row. An ironed shirt takes on an almost divine, diverting importance. A snapped stocking seems like the end of the world.
Short of match fitness
Sport, and football in particular, is becoming a holy-grail for theatre makers. It’s been repeatedly observed that the two have heaps in common; the ritual, the rules, the crowd interaction, the emotional highs and lows. Damn, even the ticket prices. It seems the two are a match made in heaven and yet, time and again, they play poorly together.
Kane without rage
Kane’s plays often have depression buried deep in their core, but this doesn’t call for empty, glazed over-acting. Instead, it requires the type of achingly strained performance that throbs with absence. The best Kane performances pulse with a desire for something more – but Shaw’s Hippolytus seems to welcome the abyss that engulfs him.
Ghosts are replaced with gunfire
A distinctly Chekovian plot seeps through the cracks of this old, 19th century house. The proprietor, Lady Lambroke, has resolved to marry off her daughter, Hannah, and thus save the family from financial ruin. Only, in McPherson’s play, the ghosts and regrets that haunt Chekov’s characters are alive and kicking – or, at least, screaming spookily through the walls.
Naked naivety
Robert Sheehan, with a chest free of hair and a body that seems to big for him, reminds one of Bambi, constantly skidding across ice. He has as little control over his body as he does over his character, which the locals re-model with relish.
A childlike glee
It is the collective wit of this company that sets their show apart - both from other, rather straight-faced experimental shows, and from their own, previous ventures. Humour sparkles everywhere.
Busy and bruising
The play never settles and although the central ‘dream’ scene allows for some more serene reflection, it’s no surprise to learn this segment was interpolated much later on. There are some beautiful whispers of poetry here, as chef Peter urges his mechanised colleagues to think for themselves, but it strains rather than thickens the play proper.
Rock hard gems of truth
Sometimes the families, each confronting unthinkable tragedies, sing in harmony. Often, they clash, with one lonely family member struggling to be heard against her babbling and frightened relations. The timbre of Tucker Green’s dialogue is so expressive that one imagines, were the words to be removed completely, the meaning would remain.
Disappointingly grounded
Sure, he flies about a lot but the strings are always on display. Ariel’s songs are delivered in a strange falsetto and the effect is not spooky but embarrassing. It is a bit like watching a kitten sing.
All about excess
As Johnny surveys the mess he has created, he comments with characteristic understatement, ‘This is getting awkward.’ It is when the show undermines the epic scale of Mozart’s piece that it actually feels strongest. Other undercutting works less well. So, as Blake merges in his R&B and dubstep beats, the cast is left to valiantly fly Mozart’s flag above this stream of sound.
‘You learn not to say anything’
This idea of the duplicitous life a successful woman must lead is exacerbated by Churchill’s extensive use of doubling. Most actresses play three roles and, as the actors make their relentless transformations, we recognise this is the same ‘performance’ most women undertake every day.
A spooky gloss
Terry Doe is a real and exciting talent, who could not be generic if he tried. Yet there is a risk of ‘sameness’ in this production as a whole, which is often impressive but occasionally crude. For a piece that examines all manner of racism, it’s a little too black and white.
The executioner’s morbid machine
The fact the script is in Arabic places a particular pressure on the actors’ rhythms and expressions. Hlehel is more musician than actor, spitting out some sections in fierce staccato and savouring other moments with a smoother and lazier delivery. He should be hideous but his loyal respect for the machine makes him hard to hate.
The toad is (damp) toast
Sure, they speak like humans but they’re not, well, human. Why couldn’t Toad do a little more hopping? Why didn’t Mole burrow a few measly holes? Why didn’t Ratty twitch his nose even once?
Glints of darkness and swamping sound
‘Mistreated? I don’t want to hear about it!’ Burt’s otherwise velvety voice takes on a flinty edge and his impatience for human frailty flares up. The crushing impact of a life of one-sided dialogue occasionally escapes this piece and these slips are ugly, interesting moments.
Man-size cats, toilet threesomes and talking washing machines
At the end of Realism, protagonist Stuart’s girlfriend asks: ‘And what did you do today?’ ‘Fuck all,’ replies Stuart. Well, these pictures, scribbled frantically in the dark, tell a different story…
Between the real and unreal
Stanley Kubrick was inspired by this infidelity fantasia, originally a novella, to make his film Eyes Wide Shut. This story, though - obsessed with the fine divide between unconscious desires and conscious action, dreams and reality – seems made for theatre.
Hallucinatory rats, roaming lights and crumbling walls
Julian Barratt, as the corrupt Mayor thrown into chaos by the imminent arrival of the Government Inspector, is not a richly textured actor. He doesn’t feel particularly solid on stage. But what Barratt does do brilliantly is to calmly absorb the increasingly bonkers action on stage – a skill he probably picked up working on the equally mental Mighty Boosh.
Outdoors and beyond
Dominic Cooke is brilliantly tuned to the pressure points in this play and he pitches this wordless fight perfectly. The aching silence which stretches out between this eye-rolling wife and eyes-down husband expresses their irreconcilable differences even more starkly than the crackling confrontation that follows.
Some loopholes are bound to emerge
As each actor watches his or her grandparent ‘perform’, it is moving to witness the old and new remembering together. The pleasure here is in the obscure details these stories unearth; the significance of the tiny things in life, despite the urgent political context in which these recollections unfurl.
Abandoned imaginings
As his audience files into a room in the Arlington restaurant, he meekly insists ‘the show hasn’t started yet’. It has. As he empties the contents of his pockets, Thorpe glibly states, ‘This is just stuff.’ It isn’t.
A little bit of tweaking, a little less streaking
The backdrop is really just a massive ream of paper but the joy is in the freeness of invention, the personal flair of their strange imaginings. It is telling that the screened segments are some of the show’s best moments and perhaps suggests these brave but bonkers performers could be destined for TV sketch comedy.
Theatre more real and technology less fake
Outside the theatre, an alarming array of machines is presented to the audience of one. Some severe-looking goggles are clamped to your face, headphones plonked on your head. It feels odd and disconcerting. Yet, in a matter of minutes, you will forget these objects are there. You will forget where you are completely.
Increasingly inebriated
Despite her contentious concept, which will no doubt frustrate some more sober-minded artistes, Kimmings is actually a charmingly naïve performer. There is something childlike about her unchecked curiosity and slightly slapdash performance style.
A touch too small
The chorus is initially composed entirely of women, who sing Arabic music as they process through the streets. They are mournful, emotional and strong. They suggest a world in which, if only women could sing in harmony more often, their voices might be heard.
Slapdash but rigorous
This might be a simple story but the storytelling is sophisticated and unusual. Summers disappear and friendships are forged in chaotic but fluid montages: the careful rearrangement of chairs, a few choice chords and some speedy costume changes gleefully sketch out the passing of time
Shaking precariously under the weight
No doubt Wallace’s play, which looks at two imprisoned women in 1950s America, reveals some important facts about an unjust justice system. It is also a touch formulaic, however, with characters that feel overdone, and symbolism so thick you could reach out and touch it.
Nature’s variable and awesome power
In those rare moments when The Other jumps off the boat and attempts to moor the raft, his rough interaction with nature – his splashing, tugging and floundering – feels hopeful. It feels like living; dangerous, unpredictable but deeply satisfying and solid.
Between a rock and a soft husband
Myrtle can’t hold her drink that well, Chicken sure as hell can, and Lot is all but useless, since his lungs are about to implode and his mother’s dresses are proving mightily distracting.
A kinder, gentler Hamlet
Joshua McGuire, with his cherubic hair and a smile that reaches to the rafters, radiates charm; one could see the younger spectators moving in to get a closer look. He pulses with naïve optimism and an innate willingness to please.
A suitably curious observer
Perhaps it’s slightly generous to call this a satire. What Chekhov in Hell really is, is a series of brilliantly conceived comic sketches. They are hugely enjoyable and contain some scathing observations but they aren’t anchored closely enough to reality to really touch a nerve. But they sure do hit the funny bone.
Thorns but no rose
Jack Gordon leaps head first into these romantic ‘trips’ and his innocent energy does a good job of grounding Ridley’s quixotic imaginings. It helps that Ridley’s phrases, although exotic and soaring, are so convincingly coined as to make them almost believable: ‘It’s like digging a hole in a sky of meat.’
Distrust and darkness ooze
Despite the exquisite synchronisation of the cast, nothing quite adds up. The strange and oblique images (the visuals often take a side step from the main action) cement the nagging feeling that something is not quite right.
Cruel magic
The opening, as the audience is led by strange, incanting men through cold and shady tunnels, is brilliant. Another man sits above the walkway and snippets of Shakespeare’s prologue waft through the dusty dungeon. Shakespeare is a great one for setting the scene and Belt Up Theatre re-imagine this portentous opening spectacularly well.
At once comforting and grindingly depressing
The redundancy of words shines out in this occasionally self-indulgent but authentic script. Leigh keeps hammering out the same phrases, emphasising the idea that though these characters talk incessantly they rarely communicate. It might be painfully repetitive at moments but it is effective, too.
A show that bleeds invention
Prospero is an old man in dirty clothes, Miranda a slightly wild lass, Trinculo a camp and stranded chap, desperate for comfort. But Caliban is a real monster, with his mouth drooling, his words hideously garbled, his eyes pounding dangerously from his face.
Crystal cruel
Gradually, we have been moving further and further away from nature. So, whilst we begin outside, we end in an underground car park, devoid of natural light. It is a place so deeply hidden that even the planes can’t reach it.
Political righteousness and hormones
The only two voices to rise above the political clamouring are those of the vodka-swilling, crotchety ex-SS soldiers. Director Longhurst teases a glowing chemistry from these two survivors, who drink like demons, compare war wounds and bitch, woefully, about the youth of today.
For the eyes rather than the heart
The only Kneehigh flavouring that adds some spice to this saccharine show is cabaret singer Meow Meow. Resembling a younger and less frightening Liza Minelli (who was present on press night and treated like royalty), Meow Meow plays host for the night.
‘I’m sick at drama!’
This is what really fizzes off the stage in Mogadishu – that endless scrabbling around for truth in those limbo years, when the yearning to be an adult forces you to scratch out your past and, in the worst instances, wipe out your future altogether.
Scampering to be heard
This is what Churchill does so well; she finds a period and a community steeped in tradition and unspoken rules and sets a firework fizzing in its midst. She then creates one exceptional but credible character and uses this anomaly to highlight the cruel rigidity of a particular time in history.
A recreation, a reinterpretation – and certainly not magic
Patrycja Kujawska is enchanting as the scarlet-shod girl, initially liberated and later fettered by her glamorous red shoes. When she first puts on her shoes, she smiles, impish and guilty, like a lady who’s just bolted down a massive Cadbury’s crème egg. She oozes guilty pleasure.
Slithering awkwardly
In Snake in the Grass, the laughs come from slightly stretching the bounds of credibility. Yes, it’s funny that these two sisters are more concerned about their living arrangements than their father’s death – but is it believable?
A blinding light spills out
The actors, given such freedom by director Rufus Norris’ clever approach, invest their roles with abandoned but focused energy. Peter de Jersey, as the sleazy reporter who turns Texas’ finger of blame of Vernon, swaggers around like a serpent, recently gifted legs.
Lots of people tittered
The preoccupation with facts also means the stories feel stretched and the characters, on the whole, perfunctory. It becomes easy to dismiss Greenland as a preachy piece about climate change – something distant and non-threatening – as opposed to a scary and recognisable exploration of something that will affect us all.
Complex conditions
As Dr Taylor is subsumed by her stroke, a flurry of past patients flashes through her consciousness and across the stage. A suspended clothes rack is dropped from above and, with outstretched hands and yearning faces, the actors assume their identities. It feels a bit overdone and many of the flourishes in this show could be flattened slightly – not every second needs to be stylised.
Cadaver carriages
Everyone talks of the heart as our strongest muscle, but here is the proof and it’s almost enough to make one proud. Despite the stubborn grappling from the hand, the relentless twisting and turning, the heart refuses to submit.
Retrial
Basden’s comedy often arises from presenting these injustices in reverse order - a technique that reminds one of Monty Python, whose mantra was to make a big deal out of the small things, and small fry out of the big stuff. So, as Joseph lists his woes, including his inability to travel or get hold of any cash, he finishes with the triumpant (very funny) flourish: ‘And my Boots points have been revoked!’
Southern simmering
Furthermore, none of the actors are very good at screaming. This might sound fatuous, but I think it is genuinely tricky to hit the high notes in Williams’ Menagerie, without an occasional wild wail screeching across stage.
What strange and fascinating creatures
Alive and overwhelming moments flutter throughout the show, but it still seems something is missing. It also feels like certain elements might’ve been removed altogether. Complicite is understandably obsessed with the nature of story-telling, and frequently explore this idea in the backdrop of their plays, but some of their thematic concerns are obtrusive here.
The terror only magnifies
Everything begins much more lightly and clearly than one might imagine of Sarah Kane’s once reviled and under appreciated play. Holmes keeps things tangible and realistic in the opening scenes and is careful not to force the later, enveloping darkness into the earlier moments. This does not initially feel like a play that could accommodate a scene in which a dead baby is served up as grub.
The right language
A hush finally falls around the table and Sylvia puts on an extraordinary show. Every cynical phrase from Christopher becomes a gentle, incredibly complex and achingly expressive sign in the hands and fingers of Sylvia. It is a scene that not only symbolises love’s ability to open up new channels of communication but also emphasises theatre’s ability to translate words on a number of different levels.
Tight-faced zombies
Perhaps I’m taking it all too seriously – but it is hard, when serious themes are consciously inserted into a play, to analyse Ravenill’s, and his collaborators’, works as skits rather than genuine play attempts.
Threatening repetition
Gradually, these repetitions are resolved. Suddenly, Corrinne breaks the clinical rhythm of the precisely paced opening scene: ‘I can’t help thinking. What if it had been a man?’ And in one sentence, Crimp releases his entire play.
Funny people asking serious questions
When the underlying violence starts to pierce through the comedy in the second act, the atmosphere tightens again and the characters crystallise. Bean is brilliant at creating unbelievably packed moments of piercing symbolism.
Eyes and thoughts turned to the heavens
Crook also holds all the weight of this play: his eyes are hardened with a deep lodged despair and deadened by hours of staring out a blank window at an empty landscape. His heavy presence is fortunate and necessary because, although Little is a likeable and assured performer, his mushroomed musings come close to sounding clichéd.
Under the skin by stealth
One has to work hard to stay engaged with each separate component of this sprawling equation, in order to find the answers. Put the work in and this play will provide bountiful rewards, a feast of ideas and images to feast on for weeks.
Stilted but enthusiastic communication
It is when the Themes of this production start to force their way into an otherwise imaginative and visually persuasive piece of theatre that the piece starts to lose its integrity and influence. The script has obviously undergone a lot of dramaturgical work, but there is an explicitness to the way these supposedly disparate scenes are linked together that starts to jar.
That giant toe attached to his face
Although Ranjit Bolt sticks faithfully to the rhyming verse format throughout, the writing never loses its pace and spontaneity. The quips are sparky but unlaboured: ‘Go up and claim your kiss/ I’m not comfortable with this.’
‘You’ve had your lifetime’s meat’
Churchill carefully turns her theatrical kaleidoscope, showing us this socio-political prism from every angle. She consistently inverses expectations with her characters and, in doing so, reflects a volatile and often unjust society, where no one gets what he or she deserves.
Delightful sparks in strange places
If this quest for the comic in Romeo and Juliet had been adopted with conviction, then perhaps this could have been a pleasingly jolting, defiantly flippant production. But there is little consistency here - and, with a drastically cut and freely adapted text, consistency of tone should have been this show’s backbone.
‘That’s all you’ll be watching, anyway’
The script is a tapestry of interviews held with Iraqi refugees now living in Jordan; there are some delicate, unassuming and illustrative stories here, which gently open our eyes to life amidst a constant, ever-changing, conflict.
An atheist architect
The architect, bizarrely oblivious to the emotional implications of her commission, blazes passionately about the honesty of her design. The Mother, understandably, is unimpressed. The problem is there is little room for manoeuvre: can a persuasive debate really be generated over such a ludicrous design? Is there any choice but for the audience to side firmly with this bedraggled and grieving mother?
A frisky and light-hearted suitor
Rosenblatt and his company accentuate this democratising effect of monarchic succession; no single character is allowed to get too puffed up or monopolise centre stage for too long.
Inexplicably and unfairly ashamed
The fugal force of Harvey’s dramatic whirlwind is Chief of Police, Tom (a profoundly versatile Philip Voss; he also plays a camp compere and leering violinist), whose life is to be turned inside out, by being outed. Journalist, Russell (Sean Gallagher), warns him that a story about his past, homosexual, relationship is about to be leaked to the press: will Tom finally come out of the closet?
Not the star of the show
In the programme notes, Bailey compares Macbeth to a ‘modern slasher film’ and I suspect the desire to frighten, engage and spill blood, has slightly drowned out deeper questions of character and motive.
Too posh for light and shade
Repeatedly, the best lines depend on conforming to rather than questioning stereotypes; ‘I’m not talking about proper poor people – like Africans…’ Almost all the cracking one-liners depend on taking the most extreme elements of these characters and stretching them to snapping point. Is it really worth it and is it saying anything new?
Seeing is believing
This is Shakespeare stripped down and then some. The stage is bare, with only a cluster of wooden slate boxes to close down the space and filter the lighting. Crucially, very few props are used and everything is mimed. Thus, from the outset, the distinction between real and unreal, hard fact and crazed fantasy, is impossibly blurred.
An endless scream
One might think the surtitles – the production is performed entirely in Polish – would prevent this play from taking hold, but they actually add to its piquancy. The script is exceptionally stark as it is but, projected on a small strip above stage, the words seem bleaker still.
Swathes of subtext
This is a different London, a different family but a deeply personal, powerful and convincing piece. Green’s play boasts a resounding performance from Seroca Davis (a real talent), alongside poetry that is truthful rather than symbolic, situations that are emotional but not sentimental and characters that are believable, flawed and unforgettable.
Whistling that pierces the heart
Tom Hughes’ Fritz is heart-breakingly young and puffed out and summons up the atmosphere of a son anticipating a hearty hiding from his dad. It is tricky to tell if any of the characters, despite the promise of a duel between Fritz and harrowed husband, recognise the real danger they face. Indeed, this is what makes Fritzs’ wilful embracing of his fate so hard to witness
Youthful, innocent and free
Judi Dench’s playfulness is systematic of the light, whimsical feel to Peter Hall’s absorbing Rose Theatre production. The show is underpinned by a desire to have fun with Shakespeare; a quality that is sometimes lost in more ‘complicated’, modern-day productions.
And she screams a lot
Perhaps aware of the potential pitfalls of his performers, Sheppeck has directed the hell out of them. It isn’t imaginative direction. Instead, Sheppeck has choreographed his actors’ every move – no doubt hoping that these props and movements will help generate what his actors cannot.
Unbelievable colours
It is a concept that draws the protagonist and stage together - whatever Barney thinks or feels, the stage reflects – and has the potential to create a volatile and revealing space in which to perform.
A real nose on a painting
Despite Filter priding itself on discovering, re-interpreting and releasing the ‘essence’ of a play – be that whilst working up an original composition or reworking an old classic - this show feels curiously unanchored, poking and hinting at ideas or new directions yet never laying down the interpretative gauntlet.
Pinter’s people
It is Davies’ combination of vivacity and frailty, pride and shame, hope and despair (clashing characteristics shared by most tragic figures but no more so than in the plays of Pinter and Beckett) that allows Pryce to let rip with this role, without ever exhausting his performance or overexposing his part.
When to stop inventing
It is when this company sticks with the puppets that their brand of theatre works best: the tangibility of puppet Lilly, the deep complexity of this wooden figure’s personality, is all down to the company’s careful, observational puppetry and sensitive accompanying performances.
Christmas cheer and darkness
The conclusion is soaring but not saccharine and suggests that good deeds, done by good people, can drip down the generations. It might sound cheesy here, but it doesn’t when meshed within Dickens cruel and dirty world.
A touch too controlled
As Pozdynyshev relates an argument he had with his wife, his outcry, ‘She turned round and called me selfish!’, is accompanied by dark, sawing violin chords. It feels unnecessary, a touch lazy and makes a subtle, complicated moment a relatively straightforward one.
Throbbing claustrophobia
Did I really just see that? Am I starting to hear things? Am I, in fact, going a little bit bonkers? These are the same questions Josef K asks himself, as endures Kafka’s baffling and battering trial.
Sardines on toast in bed
As with all good writers of farce, it is when Ayckbourn keeps things small – when he focuses on the details - that his comedy works best. Perhaps this is why the oldest couple on stage, played with pin-point accuracy by Jane Asher and Nicholas Le Prevost, are the star players here. Theirs’ is a life so entrenched in routine that Ayckbourn only has to whisper disorder and their comedy is set spiralling into motion.
Little and large
It is the development of this central relationship that is the real joy here. Theirs is an unusual dynamic – characters this age don’t take centre stage much - but rather than mine this situation for ‘profound’ gems, Payne lets his carefully selected scenes and spot-on banter do the talking.
This ranting man
Despite Gardi’s graceful and persuasive authority, there is something hardened and inaccessible to his performance. He is angry – and I mean really angry – for almost the entire piece, and it starts to wear the audience down.
Oppressive melodrama
Put simply, Williams has given himself too much plot to handle. What starts as a promising, feisty observational piece, casting light on a prison system kept largely in the dark, quickly descends into melodrama with more twists than an episode of The Bill.
Musical misadventures
The actors who stand out are those playing the stalwarts of the nightclub scene: the embittered night-club manager, the slightly loony magician assistant and the shady compere. These characters drip with clichés, but this is when Wood writes best – when she has a solid, familiar base to work from and spark off.
In loco parentis
It might be slightly manipulative, but who cares when it’s this much fun? Furthermore, this familial dynamic – this heightened bond between audience and actors - takes on a much deeper significance half-way through the show when the children remember a tragedy.
Fawlty Towers on meltdown
The set pieces are slick fun, but the further you poke around and the bolder you get, the bigger the rewards. At one point, I opened a tiny storage cupboard to find two people squeezed inside, methodically folding down the ends of a huge batch of loo-roll.
