Article first published on Blogcritics

by Natalie Bennett

There are several things that make Hamlet an enormously difficult play for any company to tackle. One is the fact that while psychologically on the page this is, many would argue, Shakespeare’s finest work, it’s tough to transfer its confused, strong emotions on to the stage.

Another is the familiarity of so many of the lines. What DO you do with “Alas poor Yorrick”? It’s been taken far past cliche.

And the sheer implausibility of the plot, particularly the denoument, can very quickly dissolve into slapstick horror.

The Recognition Theatre company, presenting a production oddly set in the 1930s (a jazz soundtrack serves only as distraction, not amplification), hasn’t really got on top of the problems. Which isn’t to say this a show without its merits – the mostly young cast do a decent, if somewhat declamatory job with the language, which rings out clearly, both the familiar and less-known.

Perhaps the best performance here is Helen Clapp’s Ophelia; she’s powerful without dissolving into hysteria, and Leanne Rivers manages an interesting cross-dressing Horatio. David Eadie as Hamlet and Adam Smethurst as Claudius were uneven – both growing in confidence as press night went on, but still not quite getting there.

Tanith Lindon’s staging is effective – the action not marred by too much faffing around with the furniture, as have a few shows I’ve seen lately, and the recurring imagery of funeral shrouds notably effective.

There’s much to recommend more generally about productions like this – much, much better than 50 people sitting in their living rooms watching television to have them gathered in a communal, social, active atmosphere – and seeing the Bard’s words live in slightly rough and ready form, much like they were once originally performed.
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Article first published on Blogcritics

by Natalie Bennett

Press night for a new production of Love on the Dole, Ronald Gow’s adaptation of the Thirties literary classic came with appropriate news symbolism – a story hugely popular among the poor and dispossessed of the Depression revived on the day signs of a looming global repeat became harder to ignore.

But it quickly became clear that this is a play, and a production, with much more than timeliness going for it. It’s a gripping, human drama, and most of the melodrama comes from the all too genuine drama of the desperate poverty of 1930s Salford: “Every week sees another hundred out of work.” (And if the portly pseudo-capitalist – in fact just a low-rate bookmaker sucking the blood of the poorest of the poor – is a caricature, he’s an enjoyably horrible but appropriate one.)

Although this is an apparently male-dominated society, it’s the women who hold it together, and so it’s just that the character at the centre of the story is Sally Hardcastle (Emily Dobbs), the young and beautiful working class lass who’s in love with Larry Meath (Carl Prekopp), the dirt-poor but passionate, self-educated political agitator. Hanging around, however, is the obnoxious bookmaker Sam Grundy, who fancies having her as his “housekeeper”.

You couldn’t say there’s suspense; that this is a story never destined to end well is written on the rusting grate and tattered tablecloth of the ultra-realist set. But you’re very quickly rooting for these characters, particularly Sally (spectacularly well played by Dobbs).

It isn’t, however, all misery – you’re also laughing at, and sometimes with, the weary, gin-fueled lines of the three crone chorus – fortuneteller Mrs Jike (Colette Kelly), clinging-to-respectability soak Mrs Dorbell (Liz Bagley), and resigned, good-hearted realist Mrs Bill (Janie Booth). Often on the fringe you’ll find young actors trying to play characters much their elder, but these three experienced actors deliver a quality and comic timing seldom found in the inexperienced, and almost steal the show.
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Article first published on Blogcritics.

by Natalie Bennett

The production of Danton’s Death at the National Theatre is pretty well everything you’d expect – well-acted, spectacularly staged, snappily directed.

Toby Stephens is a charismatic Danton, the set of Christopher Oram and the lighting of Paule Constable are hugely powerful – sometimes even more than the action. And if the staging sometimes seems to too often involve the very large cast swirling around the stage as brothel/tavern mob, Assembly, or court, the two-level set is frequently effectively utilised.

This is not, however, despite the billing, exactly, or even largely, Georg Büchner’s acclaimed 1835 play – so politically explosive it couldn’t be staged until 1902.

This is Howard Brenton’s heavily cut-down version of the play, with the focus on Danton and Robespierre (Elliot Levey), mostly their personal interactions and interactions with their respective factions, but with a strong dose too of Danton’s personal (libertine) life.

What disappears, unfortunately, is the politics. We end up wiith a French Revolution that’s mostly about the personal power struggle between two men, and a couple of wives (Kirsty Bushell is powerful as Danton’s Julie in a frustratingly 19th-century role) who’ll be so attached to their husbands that they’ll respectively go mad and commit suicide at their deaths.

This is a revolution as a romantic personal tragedy, which really has to be described as a misused revolution.

And it’s a tragedy of two men who are neither attractive characters – Robespierre emerges as the purest of blacks (such that today’s Sunday matinee audience booed the actor at the curtain call) and Danton – certainly historically inappropriately- as pure white.

I’m also less than convinced by an ending that simply goes: four main characters guillotined, the end. The staging is highly, gorily literal, but the audience was clearly waiting for some final exposition, so less (literally) messy ending, but it fails to arrive.

The production continue until October 14: online booking.

Other views: Guardian, Telegraph, Independent.

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.