by Natalie Bennett

Outdoor theatre is tough, particularly in central London. You’ve got helicopters, birds, passing drunks – a lot of distractions.

Free outdoor theatre, where the audience can wander in and out at will, is doubly tough. You’ve got to not just get people, but hold them.

That’s something that the opening night production of Don Juan in Love at The Scoop (the sunken ampitheatre beside City Hall) managed pretty well. A few people left, but most of those who were there at the start were still there 90 minutes later, if rather chilled by an unseasonal August evening.

The company chose the play well – plenty of sexual innuendo (played with physical glee), lots of violence, and non-stop drama in the oft-told story of the great lothario, here drawn from the 1839 dramatisation by Spanish romantic Jose Zorrilla.

If you’re looking for subtle psychological exploration of machismo, then you won’t find it here. But if you can enjoy a lively tale, well-staged (the final death scene – a coffin lid covered in blazing candles and skulls, used by the furies to force Don Juan down into hell – is particularly notable), and well-acted. (Although perhaps it is time to declare a moratorium on on-stage sword fights – they’re really never convincing.)

Presented by the Steam Industry Free Theatre, the show runs until September 5 at 8pm at The Scoop. Practical notes: limit of 1,000 seats. May be cancelled in case of rain.

by Natalie Bennett
Article first published on Blogcritics.

How to describe Better Than Sex: Power is Sexy? That’s a tough question.

To start with the easy labels, it’s billed as a “musical comedy”, and gets quite operatic at times. That’s in terms of how it sounds and feels.

In dialogue and lyrics it is, well, distinctive – “let’s conspire tonight/we’ve got dynamite”, “he’s one good king/ you can’t get rid of him”. There’s some lines without sexual references or expletives – “fuck email, we’ll tell them to bugger off”. Just not a lot.

Its subject, very, very loosely, is the Gunpowder Plot, although that’s a thin underlay beneath satirical comments on contemporary politics and society – it’s the Gunpowder Plot with mobile phones and Channel 5.

It’s translated from Hungarian, having been commissioned by the University of Theatre and Television there, where the show originally opened in 2009.

And without fear of contradition, you could call it surreal.

There are some brilliant moments – my favourite was King James (Timi Charles-Fadipe, who also plays Guy Fawkes, in an extraordinary blond whig – very not 17th-century) watching a “how to be a dictator” video (styled on exercise videos), ranging from Napoleon to the older Bush, stopping at Thatcher along the way. And Lady Domina (Adam Ganne), as James’ transexual courtesan-cum-press secretary delivers press conferences that are delightfully on the money.

The choreography, by Shih-Huang Hsu, was also fine, and some of the clowning scenes between Servina (Barbara Zemper – who displayed the finest singing voice here) and the butler (Duncan Wilkins), their nature playing off a running Shakespeare-as-speechwriter gag running through the show, were notably excellent.
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by Sarah Cope

A play about a 12-year-old girl turning 13, who is played by an 18-year-old, which is written by a 17-year-old (Anya Reiss) and which has a guidance note saying that it’s suitable for 14 years upwards, is always going to be an interesting prospect.

The Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, always such an adaptable space, is presented as a two-level house, rather like an open-fronted dolls’ house.

The emotions that are acted out within that house, however, are all too human and recognisable.

Warring parents, played superbly by Sharon Small and Kevin Doyle, argue relentlessly, paying no heed to the fact that their 12-year-old daughter Delilah (Shannon Tarbet) is looking on – indeed, she sometimes ends up acting as a referee.

Add to this toxic mix a 21-year-old lodger Daniel (James McArdle) who has problems of his own, and self-mutilates in his room.

Whether it’s a response to the war zone in which she lives or simply adolescent hormones, Delilah kisses Daniel, completely unnoticed by the parents (who are just sitting – arguing – at the other end of the settee). A moment, perhaps, that requires a small amount of suspension of disbelief.

There then follows lots of brow-beating, as Daniel repeatedly rejects and then kisses Delilah, who threatens to tell her parents what has been happening.

The problem with the play is that the constant arguments of the parents are realistic, but hearing other people’s arguments is both painful and dull – a strange combination.

There are some great lines – the mother, in a rare calm moment, tells her daughter, “I was in such a rush to grow up – I never thought what I’d do when I got there.”

Some lines, though, are surplus to requirements – the father’s statement “This is such a dysfunctional family!” is a case in point. I could have also done without the repetition of the title within the script – ‘spur of the moment’ is used to describe both the father’s affair with his boss and Delilah’s advances on Daniel.

The title of the play, as well as being bland, doesn’t really fit – I was reminded of Margaret Atwood’s advice to young writers at a workshop I attended some years ago. Atwood simply said “titles are murder.” So perhaps Anya Reiss can be forgiven for not coming up with a great title for what is her first play.
The production continues until 21 August: More.

In the introduction to the programme of Confessions of a Dancewhore the creator and performer of the one-person show Michael Twaits says describing what it is is a “semantic nightmare” – and he’s certainly right.

But let’s try: it’s part cabaret, part stand-up comedy, part polemic, part tragedy, a lot comedy, part multi-media performance, a bit of a lecture – that’s a lot in 85 minutes of intense performance, storytelling and confession.

But those are a generally gripping, dramatic, and often moving 85 minutes – certainly not everyone’s glass of vodka, and if you’d described it to me beforehand as an exploration of one person’s gay identity and rage against society’s attempt to put individuals into neat boxes of sexual identity, I might not have gone.

“Why is who I choose to fuck such a decisive factor in who you think I am?” is an interesting question, but in the wrong hands could easily have lapsed into self-indulgent navel-gazing.

But I’m glad I did choose to see Confessions of a Dancewhore – it was a powerful, political, lively evening – and filled with laughs, which is always a plus. And it would have been worth it almost for the line alone: “I am a post-drag queen.”
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Article first published as Theatre Review (London): Dig by J.D. Smith and No More, Salvator? by Michael Hart at the Old Red Lion on Blogcritics.

A one-act play is a tricky thing. You need to present the characters, create scenarios for them, then neatly roll it up, all within something less than an hour.

You need to grab people fast, but make them feel like they are getting something meaty and substantial, with something to talk about after the show.

The two plays that have just premiered together at the Old Red Lion in Islington take two different approaches, although both are centred around the interaction of two characters.

The first, Dig, sees an incompetent, nervous, weak hitman try to force his planned victim to dig his own grave. But his victim isn’t playing ball.

It’s hardly an original scenario, and it really doesn’t quite work. The behaviour of the nervous hitman is logical enough, but that of his victim-to-be makes little sense. The explanation he gives to the audience – I really couldn’t tell if we were supposed to believe it, I certainly didn’t – just doesn’t hold together.
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