Cindy Marcolina - Page 15

After two years of absolute doom and uncertainty, 2022 began with a sprinkle of glimmer on the horizon. Masked up and cautious, we came back to theatres properly. Admittedly and unfortunately, I found the return underwhelming and gave very few glowing 5-star reviews. I still loved a good number of productions, but it’s a far cry from struggling to whittle it down to a Top 10. Nonetheless, it was an exciting year.

Ultimately, it's a show about human connection. Whether you trust your eyes or you don't, whether his deceptions work on you or don't, or if you simply take the evening as a fascinating social experiment or couples therapy, it's all about a shared experience. After the lockdowns, the face masks, the rampant deaths, it feels good to go into something open-heartedly and willing to be surprised. It's safe to say that Brown has another hit on his hands.

Presented in the round with the inclusion of closed-captioning at every performance and a few BSL-signing characters, it’s probably the most accessible, most gender-fluid show currently running in London.

It's a clever, engaging format. Resembling more to a daytime talk show than a traditional cabaret, the audience joins in in the scripted malarkey while the guests discuss anything from dream roles to nervous poos. It truly is a chance to get up close and personal with the stars to discover personalities as big as their voices while they perform songs that have meaning in their lives and careers.

All in all, the piece is promising at this stage, but it could be so much more. The idea is clever, the dynamic is intriguing, it just needs a rewrite or two.

Playwright Paul Morrissey explores a fascinating case, transforming it into a boutique paranormal thriller whilst trying to explain the lead-up to their disappearance. Directed by Shilpa T-Hyland, Wickies: The Vanishing Men of Eilean Mor is a good alternative to the Christmas stories that traditionally haunt London at this time of year.

While only one hour long, Teglia’s script has a lot of surplus material that’s solely used to bring the topics up. Tia and Kai regale Sienna with the crazy tales of their wild childhood on the estate, painting a clichéd picture of contemporary disadvantaged youth versus their luckier pals. They’re happy in their world. Sienna is obviously not. What should be a layered piece remains explored only on a surface level without much empathy shown to either side of privilege.

It's an exceptional addition to a Theatreland that's generally lacking in political engagement, especially during the Christmas period. It's intense, brainy, and absolutely delectable. The latest West End must-see.

Winter has come to the Globe and it brought Henry V to the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse for the first time in its history. Holly Race Roughan directs William Shakespeare’s patriotic tale of pride, King, and country in a seductively lit evening that desperately wants to be a fresh anti-imperialist take but stumbles lightly on its own steps. The production - created in collaboration with Headlong Theatre, Leeds Playhouse, and Royal & Derngate - suggests a number of progressive, contemporary ideas that don’t quite take root fully.

Oliver Reese, artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble, translates the tale for the stage transforming it into a one-man-show led by Jonathan Slinger. But do we need another white man’s poor-me point of view in 2022? The book has its merits, as does the play, but what is this show trying to say? It’s difficult to pinpoint.

Nicholson writes a deliciously entertaining adaptation of the novel, while Marieke Audsley has it jump off the page of a storybook.

It’s remarkable how permeating Thomas Newman’s score is. It becomes evident in such a context, where the music is given the place of honour as it soaringly comes alive.

It all sounds quite dramatic on paper, but the piece becomes a relentless plod-along. It’s plotless and paceless. The characters are irredeemably broken and unchanged by their time on stage. Monica is an alcoholic, Jess is having an existential crisis, Jeff is a church-going gambler, and Matt’s grief for his mother rules his apathetic life.

It should all feel very epic, but it’s mild at best. While the piece puts into perspective how irrelevant any matter of the heart is in the face of war, the attempt to present the love stories so upfront mostly just dilutes the critique of the American military system. An unmemorable score that ambles from blues to rock and a rather formulaic text don’t raise the stakes, introducing soldiers carrying weapons that look straight out of a toy box and wearing brand new boots, shiny in their unscuffedness.

Ultimately, this is a story of unintentional alienation and the role of mental health in those who care for other people’s. It’s funny and tragic, thought-provoking and entertaining. It’s far from being a perfect piece, but it paints an accurate picture of the shambolic conditions doctors and nurses are forced to work in.

Rona Munro explores the ramifications of the - then alleged, now confirmed - rape of Mary, Queen of Scots under the warped lens of the political games for which it was a useful tool. Mary is the last companion piece to Munro’s The James Plays cycle. It introduces the intriguing, malicious hearsay and delivers it with jarring misogyny, moulding political enterprise and gossip seamlessly. She juxtaposes blind allegiance to popular opinion, perception to truth.

It’s the first anniversary of the death of Imi’s father and she’s having a lonely wake for Roger, her 8-month-old therapy dog whom she’s convinced absorbed all her feelings and kicked the bucket for it. “We’re the live, get on with it, cry on your own silently kind of family”, she says.

Rupert Goold directs a sanitised tale of faith, love, and financial fraud with a cast led by Andrew Rannells and Katie Brayben as the Bakkers - the couple who changed the face of American Christianity by broadcasting “24 hours per day, seven days a week until the second coming” in the 70s and 80s. It’s a camp production, clearly pre-packaged for the West End, that’s too abridged in its retelling of the story to hit the mark. 

With many years ahead of the producer’s career, this most definitely won’t be the definitive text on Mackintosh’s tangible contributions to London’s theatres, but it’s a remarkable “the story so far” on a figure who’s as admired as is criticised.

The writer packs it with top-shelf themes. Racism, inequality, unemployment, masculinity, gang culture, social media, street violence, class, education. The failure of a system that should support but only cuts. Sadly, this play isn’t the abundance of richness it could be.