Review: Grand Guignol by Carl Grose, at the Southwark Playhouse

Paul Chequer, Robert Portal, Emily Raymond. Photo Steve Tanner

Saying Carl Grose’s Grand Guignol, currently playing at the Southwark Playhouse, is perfect for Halloween is a huge understatement, as well as a disservice. Bloody, gory, funny and twisted, it has you snort-laughing through your nose and then checking if any blood came out. It has the innocent unpretentious naffness of 19th century travelling shows, yet it starts getting to you, because “actors, playwrights, lunatics” are all “imminently fascinating”, especially when there is no line between them, blurred or otherwise.

For all its upfront silliness, it’s knowingly – but not annoyingly – smart, and surprisingly incisive. More importantly, it’s about creativity and the theatre, which means I was bound to love it with a love that knows no bounds. Give me a play within a play, a wink behind the scenes, a seedy part of town with a company of actors –  and I am happy as pig in shit. Which is the point: it’s unselfconsciously colourful, yet playfully tender.

Review: Tis Pity She’s a Whore, at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe

Fiona Button as Annabella, Max Bennett as Giovanni. Photo Simon Kane

Something happens twenty minutes into John Ford’s Tis Pity She’s a Whore, as performed at the Sam Wanamaker playhouse. Up until that point, I knew I was watching a hugely engaging production of a very fine play. Fluid, clear, intelligent. But at the beginning of the second act, in the scene where Giovanni and Annabella are in bed together, having made love for the first time, things are revealed for what they are. It’s not that the production changes gear, it is the audience catching up. The intense intimacy of falling in love ripples from stage to audience, tender, delicate, exposed to light – like camera film. Should we be here? Who is watching whom? And who is guilty of forbidden acts?

And then you get it. This production of Tis Pity She’s a Whore is going to be thrillingly hot. Not only in a high-minded way, or even in a carnal way – although both these are true – but forbidden, dangerous. The candlelight is fire and danger as much as it is shadows and trembling beauty. This is the achievement of Michael Longhurst’s production: without rewriting the play, he welds together themes of forbidden love with this cradle of a space, the breathing-fire quality of the text with feverish, sharp action. The result brims with exquisite life (and therefore death).

After that, everything falls into place and gains huge momentum. Max Bennett and Fiona Button, Giovanni and Annabella, brother and sister and lovers, fit perfectly and tenderly together, hands blindly seeking, breaths synching. It’s physics as much as anything else, bodies orbiting each other. Nature versus nature, sibling relationship versus cosmic powers.

Review: Spine by Clara Brennan, at the Soho theatre

Rosie Wyatt as Amy. Photo Richard Davenport

Plays talk to each other, I know they do. One evening I saw James Graham’s The Angry Brigade, and the next I saw Clara Brennan’s Spine at the Soho theatre. Spine is, in essence, the angry brigade, if angry is furiously tender and livid and paralysed by answers and galvanised by questions and innocent, oh so innocent you can clearly see till the end of the world.

Spine is a little like Harold and Maude but without the sex. Was there any sex in Harold and Maude? Probably not. OK I might be wrong about Harold and Maude but I am not wrong about this: Spine is brilliant. It punches through. It’s about saying you want a revolution and actually meaning it. It’s like coming up to a closed door, knocking and screaming and kicking it down, and when it opens, it takes your breath away. It’s about people crawling out of books. It’s about the NHS (trust me, it is). It’s about a book thief at the house at the end of the road. It’s about saying “I own my vagina” more loudly and clearly than Vagina Monologues ever did. It’s  about having the courage to be the mischievous warrior angel others see in you. It’s about having courage, full stop.

Review: The Cherry Orchard, by Anton Chekhov – in a new version by Simon Stephens, at the Young Vic Theatre

Kate Duchene as Lyubov Ranevskaya, Dominic Rowan as Alexander. Photo Stephen Cummiskey

You wait ages for one Chekhov and two arrive in less than a week. I was disappointed by Uncle Vanya at St James Theatre, which made the anticipation of The Cherry Orchard a tense affair: I don’t like not liking Chekhov. It’s almost hurtful. It doesn’t make sense. The meaning of life comes into question. Fortunately, the Young Vic Cherry Orchard – spiky, unsentimental, insolent, respectful only of a ridiculous tender heart – comes to restore the world as it should be.

The production, directed by Katie Mitchell in a new version by Simon Stephens, crackles with elegant and thrilling contradictions: outwardly it looks traditional, with its straight-laced proscenium arch and naturalistic approach. Yet it creates a feeling of uneasiness, a punky wave of a new world. The modern setting (invoked mostly due to costumes) is established with huge confidence: suits and ties don’t demand the presence of smartphones and Ipads, letters are still sent and news (good news, bad news, terrible news) is still being delivered by messenger. The characters break out into behaviours Chekhov would have never dreamed of which only highlights their inability to break free: their behaviour is often unhinged but that gives them no insight or self-awareness. It’s an act of decompression, like a balloon losing air and spinning out of control, only to end up on the floor, shriveled and defeated.

Review: Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, in a new version by Anya Reiss, at the St James theatre

Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya is a pretty ordinary tragedy. Wasted lives by default and undue care, squandered opportunities, realisations coming too late. It’s as ordinary as it is immense. Could anything have changed? Can it still? Does it matter? Is it best to lack the willingness or the intellect? These characters are self-aware, but have no energy to do anything about it.

In the new version by Anya Reiss, directed by Russell Bolam, the story is set in modern times and, sad to say, lacks bite. If I included these statements in the same sentence, it’s not because they are intrinsically linked. The modern setting could have worked well, in fact I can see the play reflected all around me. (We ‘d like to think the world is our oyster and we are savvy in making choices and having portfolio lives but truth is, from one rushed day to the next, moments are often lived thoughtlessly).

The production taps into the ridiculousness of the characters but doesn’t allow enough space for their tenderness.

Review: Here Lies Love by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, at the Dorfman stage, National theatre

Public theatre cast in New York. Photo Joan Marcus

A few days ago, watching James III of the James Plays trilogy, I “moaned” that the production doesn’t allow the audience to dance. A few days later, watching (or rather “experiencing”) Here Lies Love at the newly opened Dorfman I got my wish. Given that Here Lies Love is a history play of sorts, it all ties well together.

All kidding and spurious connections aside, the musical by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim is a unique proposition. The word unique is overused but I think I am on solid ground: it’s a disco musical about Imelda Marcos (poor girl in Philippines becomes first lady, and excess queen, and dictator’s wife) that is staged on the dance floor. This is important: it’s not a play that borrows elements of a night club. It’s a play that belongs to a night club.