Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons

 Harold Pinter Theatre

11^th February, 2023, matinee

“Have you said that before?”

After several successful fringe productions, Sam Steiner’s 2015 play Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons has now been revived in the West End in an assured production by Josie Rourke. Set in a society about to pass a law which limits people to using no more than 140 words a day, Steiner explores its implications on a relationship and the limits of language itself.

Looking at the play text, there is an economy not only to Steiner’s dialogue (partly necessitated by the plot) but also to the stage directions. A simple * denotes a scene change and there’s no indication of time or place. Well, that’s not quite true. The length of Bernadette and Oliver’s exchanges and the care with which they use language is a clue to when the scene might be set, even before it’s fully clear what’s going on. We soon sense that the scenes are not in chronological order, with moments from later in their relationship sitting cheek by jowl with scenes of before they started dating. For any production of Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons (no word count in this review!), a decision needs to be made about how and if such changes in time are presented. Cleverly, Rourke keeps the breaks between scenes short and sharp, a slight change in lighting the only thing marking a new scene as if it’s a new breath. It is also clear that the scenes have been split into ‘pre-word limit’ and ‘post-word limit’. Aideen Malone’s lighting bathes the ovular playing space in a warm glow for scenes before the law has passed whereas scenes after have a cold blue tint, as if the world is bereft of the richness and creativity that language affords. Like the text, Robert Jones’ design also has a clean aesthetic. Shelves filled with the detritus of everyday life line the back of the stage: pots and pans, a toaster, a car wheel. Malone uses neon strip lights to compartmentalise the shelves in different ways. It’s a nod, perhaps, to language being another dispensable object which we take for granted.

Both Aidan Turner and Jenna Coleman are believable and very likeable as the couple, Oliver and Bernadette. Oliver protests the bill, passionately arguing it’s a censorship on free speech. Bernadette on the other hand is more hesitant: ‘Words are the weapons of the middle class’ she tells Oliver, believing the limit may democratise how we communicate. However, her workplace is partly exempt which later causes tension between them. Interestingly, parliament is another exemption; one rule for them and all that. It’s an interesting concept and you can’t help but wonder about the consequences if characters do go over the daily limit. Steiner instead uses it as an opportunity to explore the effect it has on how we communicate, prompting us to interrogate every wasted word in our own conversations.

Faced with the prospect, how do Oliver and Bernadette choose to spend their verbal exchanges? Is it more important to compliment your lover’s hair or to tell them to put more cayenne in the beans? What becomes of connections and relationships without qualifiers, fillers and hesitations? In a sequence of short scenes in which Oliver and Bernadette say ‘I love you’, we hear the multitude of different ways those three words can be said: to comfort, to celebrate, to apologise, to reassure, simply out of habit. Both meaningfully and unmeaningfully they are just three of thousands of words they said to each other each day throughout their relationship. This sits next to a scene where they’re forced to contract the words to ‘Lovou’ which somehow loses its depth of meaning. The placing of scenes seems more important as the play goes on. The scene after the word limit comes into effect is a scene where they met at a pet cemetery. They talk about nothing in particular and yet there’s so much meaning beneath the words. Is language purely functional, does it only exist for its surface meaning?

I’ve heard the play compared to the works of Caryl Churchill, particularly Blue Heart (1997). But I think there’s less of a disconnect with Steiner’s play, I felt more involved with the characters. Such a major revival now will surely help to establish it as a contemporary classic. It’s a compelling play with a puzzle-like quality, and I found myself becoming more absorbed as it went on, making connections with earlier (later?) scenes.

Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons runs at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 18^th March followed by a short tour to Manchester and Brighton.

Aidan Turner and Jenna Coleman in Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons. Credit: Johan Persson

Annie

 Curve, Leicester

28^th February 2023

 

‘Don't it feel like the wind is always howlin’?
Don't it seem like there's never any light?’

 

While I have fond childhood memories of wearing out an old VHS of the 1982 film adaptation of Annie (a double cassette with Oliver!), I’ve never seen the classic musical on stage. So for old fans and newcomers alike, this new tour of Nikolai Foster’s revival, which started life at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2011, is a solid production, showcasing all the well-loved songs while adding a pinch of Matilda-esque punch thanks to some imaginative design and sharp choreography. The story of the little red-haired orphan in search of her parents is simple, well-paced and very sweet, if bordering on saccharine (the stuff with FDR stuck me as bizarre even as a child!). Throw in some cute kids and a scene-stealing dog, and Foster and co. have a sure-fire hit on their hands.

Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin’s score has lost none of its charm and those standards of the musical-songbook (‘Hard Knock Life’, ‘Tomorrow’, ‘Easy Street’, ‘You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile’, etc.) are served well by a committed ensemble and some smashing choreography from Nick Winston. An early stand out number situates the musical in a much more political sphere than I’d anticipated. ‘Hooverville’, a satirical ‘up yours’ sung by the homeless community of NYC, lambasts the policy-makers of the day and (light-heartedly) highlights the everyday suffering brought on by the Depression. Unfamiliar to me (the number doesn’t feature in the film) this was a surprising and very welcome (albeit short-lived) segue into more adult wit and thematic substance. From thereon in the musical reverts to fantastical realism, with an emphasis on the fantastical - Colin Richmond’s set features stretched looming doorways dominating the orphanage, while oversized furniture and art deco glitz characterises the Warbucks house. Richmond’s sets are embellished by chalkboard drawings and giant puzzle piece prosceniums, and this filtering of the action through the lens of child’s play ultimately tempers the more cloying elements of the plot.

As ever, the abundance of talent on offer from the youngsters in the cast is inspiring. Carrying the show on her small but mighty shoulders, Zoe Akinyosade is an assured, sweet and down-to-earth Annie. She is endearing and has the audience on side from the off. Alex Bourne and Amelia Adams provide strong support as a rather soft and fuzzy Daddy Warbucks and glamorous-yet-practical Grace Farrell, respectively. Yet star-billing is reserved for Craig Revel Horwood’s beleaguered, bosom-adjusting fishwife Miss Hannigan. Revel Horwood plays a fine drunk and is clearly having a ball in the role, despite occasionally being upstaged by charismatic turns from Paul French and Billie-Kay as Hannigan’s dastardly brother, Rooster and girlfriend Lily St Regis.

Annie safely remains a solid family-friendly show, and a perfect introduction to theatre for young children. The production is in safe hands as the creative team maximises the musical’s plus points while also highlighting some perhaps previously overlooked elements. The production is both contemporary and nostalgic and it most certainly had me tapping my toes and humming the tunes as we exited the theatre. As a tonic to those late-winter blues Annie is a sugary dose of escapism that entices broad smiles and warm hearts. With a roster of names set to don the Miss Hannigan mantle throughout the tour (Paul O’Grady, Jodie Prenger and Elaine C Smith are all due to step into the role), there is plenty to keep fans intrigued and I’ll be interested to hear how the show evolves over time.

Annie plays at Curve, Leicester until 4^th March 2023.

For full tour dates please visit: https://anniethemusicaltour.uk/

Craig Revel Horwood as Miss Hannigan in Annie. Credit: Paul Coltas

Prima Facie

National Theatre at Home

Streamed 2022 (initially broadcast 21^st July following a run at the Pinter Theatre)

“Let him think I have lost my way”

Browsing a renowned Brighton flea market last year, I came across an American theatre magazine from 1954 (a subscription address on the back indicates it was once owned by Roy Plomley incidentally). One article entitled ‘Thirty Million Angels’ envisages a future where a “TV viewer will be able to see the Broadway premiere of a play in his own parlour” by purchasing a subscription by mail. Technology has thankfully simplified the means for streaming theatre since then but the article was certainly right about the public’s demand for it. Born out of lockdown as a substitution for live cinema screenings, NT at Home is now as accessible and affordable as monthly subscriptions to Netflix or Disney+. Following a successful run in the West End and a record-breaking cinema release (one cinema in Sheffield screened it a staggering 228 times), Suzie Miller’s one-woman play Prima Facie is now available to stream until 9^th March. So, living in a town with a population of almost 60,000 but with no theatre or cinema, we’re able to watch it from the comfort of our living room.

Top criminal defence barrister Tessa Ensler (Jodie Comer) has unlimited potential. From a working-class background, she made it into Cambridge, passed the bar, and hasn’t lost a case in months. Catapulting us into the play’s relentless pace, the opening sequence introduces us to Tessa cross-examining a witness, lulling them into a false sense of security before going in for the kill. Miller’s text is like a stream of consciousness: her protagonist analyses every raised eyebrow and each paper shuffle, dissecting the game of cat and mouse in which she lets the mouse think it’s got the upper hand. In this way, Tessa is every bit an actor as Comer’s protagonist in Killing Eve. She plays up the innocent, inexperienced lawyer act to uncover any trace of doubt in a witness’ story. But underneath Tessa’s ability to navigate the system is an unshakable belief in the process of law. For her, the right to innocence is a human right. So when Tessa is raped by a colleague, she struggles to square legal instinct against the reality of human instinct.

Comer shows us Tessa’s unstoppable energy from the start. After winning a case, we see her dancing on a table and doing shots in a nightclub at 2am and then back in silks munching on Chipsticks by 8. She radiates Tessa’s confidence and embraces her successes and later devastatingly conveys her isolated terror. Intricate details in Miller’s text leave indelible images which root the play with a sense of character and place. When Tessa goes back home (Comer’s Liverpudlian accent comes to the fore here) she sees her mum picking up carrots from the floor. It’s such a small moment but one which evokes pity, love and a sense of home all in one line. Justin Martin’s production brings together different design elements to also give the play its forward momentum. Natasha Chivers’ lighting, for instance, can take us from the warmth of home to the intrusive white light of a police interview room.

The play takes a phenomenological approach as it explores Tessa’s personal experiences. When she’s being medically examined she tells us “eyes on the ceiling, gritted teeth” giving a sense that she’s trying to survive each passing moment. Miller’s language is prosaic if a little over-egged especially later on when we see her take the stand: “this brightly lit, suffocating courtroom”, for instance. When the play turns the dial up on its polemic, Comer stares down the camera to remind us of the depressing statistic that one in three women are sexually assaulted. It would be easy to say this is too preachy, but here the play cleverly steps out of its world, aware of the responsibility it has, and embraces its voice.

There are also some effective decisions from Mathew Amos as its director for the screen. One frame captures both the large oak table adorned with bankers’ lamps along with the wine bottle from the night of the rape which shows how entwined Tessa’s professional and personal lives are. And in the closing moments, the floor-to-ceiling shelves of folders in Miriam Buether’s elegant design gain new meaning to suggest the scale of injustice in a system where the odds are stacked against the victims.

There have been a number of fine single-actor plays in recent years (Gary Owen’s Iphigenia in Splott, Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer). Combative and fierce, Prima Facie is another momentous addition to these. We may have been at home, but I was totally absorbed in the play and Comer’s towering performance that I forgot the interruptions of everyday life.

Prima Facie is available to stream on NT at Home until 9^th March. Jodie Comer then reprises her role at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway from 11^th April.

Jodie Comer in Prima Facie. Credit: Helen Murray

Curve 2023 Season Launch

Curve, Leicester

6^th February, 2023

Last night, we were invited to Leicester’s Curve to hear more about their upcoming season. Set in the Studio, with the back wall lifted to reveal the illuminated back of Fly Davis’s atmospheric set for The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the event was hosted by Artistic Director Nikolai Foster, The Stage’s Deputy Editor Matt Hemley, and BBC Leicester’s Aminata Kamara. It was also our first opportunity to enjoy the new seating in the Studio. Replacing the two-tier black seats, the plush red seats are not only more comfortable but the space now feels like one. ‘Studio theatre’ can sometimes imply the work is more subordinate to what’s on the main stage, but this isn’t the case. The work we’ve seen in Curve’s Studio is certainly just as vital and dynamic as that produced next door and the new seating now reflects that. Similarly, Sheffield’s Crucible recently renamed its Studio to the Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse to welcome audiences to the space with a renewed vigour. Likewise, the new seating at Curve makes it a more democratic space and one which matches the audience’s experience to sitting in the main auditorium.

The evening started by reflecting on the last year: major revivals of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Billy Elliot, and The Wizard of Oz; West End transfers; UK tours; and community productions. Curve’s productivity and its commitment to make theatre coming out of the pandemic has (in my opinion at least) been unrivalled. Foster and Curve’s new Chair of the Board of Trustees Sita McIntosh spoke about Curve’s mission to create work with a local and national impact which encourages the next generation to engage with theatre. Their belief in the work and commitment to community is clear. From the bus loads of school groups seeing Ocean…, Curve is once again buzzing with activity.

After hearing a gorgeous rendition of ‘Tight Connection to My Heart’ from Conor McPherson and Bob Dylan’s The Girl from the North Country which plays at Curve next month, we moved on to the upcoming season. The breadth and eclecticism of work on and off the stage really stands out. In April, audiences can see Roy Williams’ 2010 play Sucker Punch and new musical Cake, a Parisian dance gig in one act. In May, Curve presents Jonathan Church’s new production of Broadway musical 42^nd Street with choreography by Bill Deamer prior to a London run and UK tour. In the same month, the annual co-production with DMU will see students stage Jim Cartwright’s 1986 play Road in the Studio.

In September, after a well-received run last year at Bolton’s Octagon Theatre, Lotte Wakeham brings her production of The Book Thief, based on Marcus Zusak's novel, to Curve. There will also be a co-production with Frantic Assembly on a new version of Kafka’s Metamorphosis written by Lemn Sissay. Their accessible and contemporary take on Othello last year showed why they’re one of the most exciting theatre companies working today so I’m sure this will likewise be a must-see. And at Christmas, Foster will direct a new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s and Tim Rice’s Evita (1978). What’s really exciting is that Foster hinted it will make full use of the main stage similar to Billy Elliot, A Chorus Line and West Side Story. And in 2024, Curve will launch the UK tour of Come From Away, from which we heard Alice Fearn’s breath-taking version of ‘Me and the Sky’. There are also much anticipated UK tours of Annie, An Inspector Calls, Noughts and Crosses, SpongeBob the Musical and much more.

For further information, please visit https://www.curveonline.co.uk/

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Tuesday 31^st January 2023

Curve, Leicester

 

‘It’s a rip in Forever.

Where anything is possible’

 

In recent years theatre goers have been relishing what has turned out to be a golden era for British literary adaptations. Theatre makers have mined seemingly unadaptable source novels for a spectacle of riches that has brought a new wave of visually and thematically imaginative plays with broad appeal to audiences nationwide. While the West End has profited from recent successes such as the record-breaking Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Sheffield Theatres’ acclaimed Life of Pi, at the forefront of this cultural trend is the National Theatre, proving that they remain champions of innovative, entertaining and accessible art. Building upon such juggernauts as War Horse and Curious Incident, their latest mega-play sees Writer Joel Horwood and Director Katy Rudd bring to life Neil Gaiman’s 2013 novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane. The result is an enchanting blend of heartfelt magical realism with more than a touch of whimsy and a delicious dash of horror.

Gaiman’s story focuses on a Boy (played by Daniel Cornish at this performance), who’s world is turned upside down by the Hempstocks, a trigenerational family of magical women. On the day of the Boy’s twelfth birthday his family’s lodger kills himself via carbon monoxide poisoning, stealing the family car and plunging them into crisis. While his widowed Father works extra shifts to make ends meet, he urges Boy to be a grown up. This mainly involves feigning stoicism and outright lying to protect his younger Sister (Laurie Ogden). Rejecting this, the Boy finds adventure and escape via his new friend Lettie Hempstock (Millie Hikasa) and her otherworldly farm. For a story featuring wormholes, shapeshifting ‘Fleas’ and journeys through an ocean of eternity the plot could seem impenetrably dense, however in Horwood and Rudd’s hands the piece never seems overcomplicated or abstract, thanks to some deftly deployed exposition and excellent pacing.

The story is framed as a memory play, beginning and ending with the grown-up Boy reminiscing about his visits to the farm, aided by a familiar yet strange figure. The blurred lines between memory, imagination and reality are exquisitely played upon by Gaiman, Horwood and Rudd – a dream isn’t just a dream, if a person imagines something it exists as it is real to that person. Similarly, the imagined magic of stories (notably, Alice in Wonderland and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) are utilised by Gaiman and co. as powerful forces against both real and imagined monsters – Boy reads every night to conquer his fear of the dark, but he later uses these stories he’s come to memorize to help him evade a monster that has infiltrated his home, in a feat of simple but gratifying ingenuity. The story is a perfect fit for theatre, where we likewise experience the boundary-blurring, imagination-enriching mesh of the actual and the fantastical.

Rudd makes fine use of Steven Hoggett’s movement direction and Samuel Wyer’s puppetry, animating high-concept theories and phantasmagorical creatures with some truly captivating stagecraft. There’s also a great scene featuring misdirection trickery, wherein multiple Ursulas (Charlie Brooks) appear to torment the Boy. Fly Davis’s enchanted wood set is atmospheric, shifting from being gnarly and imposing to embodying an ethereal dreamscape. I was also struck by Jherek Bischoff’s original music – not something that often stands out in a play – but, like Adrian Sutton’s scores for War Horse and Curious Incident, the music here feels like a character in its own right. From 80’s synths to melting string harmonies and menacing rhythms, Bischoff enhances the action and feeling presented onstage.

It is telling that amid all the supernatural goings-on (mind-reading, parasitic nannies; intergalactic vultures) and all their theatrical realisation, it is the mundane horrors in Ocean that prove most nightmarish, such as the punishment dealt to the Boy by his Father for disobeying him, and the eery image of the suicidal lodger, hosepipe affixed to his face like an uncanny gasmask. Gaiman’s story succeeds because the magic in the plot is so deeply rooted in the real-life issues of 1980’s working-class Britain; Boy first suspects that his new friend is not as she seems when he regurgitates a fifty pence piece in his sleep, and the demonic Ursula feeds off the family’s financial hardship and the want of a wife/mother figure. The tale is also an excellent example of a coming-of-age narrative; we are repeatedly reminded that nothing is as it appears on the outside, most poignantly in the case of grown-ups merely being the children they always were, trapped in an adult shell of deception. Growing up is a pervasive theme amongst young adult literature, and from the juxtaposition of Boy refusing to ‘be a man’ and Lettie’s anguish at being unable to grow older, to the ways that the older Boy remembers and mis-remembers his fantastical childhood, here it is addressed with an exhilarating mix of wonder and terror.

While the themes and 80’s setting of Ocean are strikingly reminiscent of smash-hit Netflix series Stranger Things, Horwood has ensured that the play retains Gaiman’s very British sensibilities. Memorable lines are peppered throughout the play, from the whimsical (‘Monsters are things that everyone is scared of – Then what are monsters scared of?’) to some wonderfully droll one liners from Finty Williams’ matriarchal Old Mrs Hempstock (‘A cup of tea is a human right’; ‘Do you think she’d do something so common as die?’). The National Theatre has once again produced a play that will appeal to all ages (although very young children may be a little too frightened) and perfectly marries plot, spectacle and feeling. Gaiman has articulated the very personal yet universal experiences of loss, love, hardship and change, with a masterly touch. The bittersweet ending certainly leaves audiences enamoured with the characters and wishing to linger in the uncanny world of the Hempstocks a while longer.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane plays at Curve until 11th February.

For full tour details please visit: https://oceanonstage.com/#tour 

The cast of Ocean at the End of the Lane
Credit: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg

Top 10 Theatre of 2022

Following two years of disruption due to the pandemic, we seemed to get our theatre-going mojo back in 2022. We finally saw Sara Bareilles’ musical Waitress, a musical which was at ease with putting together the heartfelt and quirky as it was with putting together bacon and blueberry in a pie. Frantic Assembly demonstrated once again why they’re one of the most exciting theatre companies today with their stripped-back, contemporary take on Othello. Jodie Comer had an unstoppable energy in Suzie Miller’s one-woman play Prima Facie. And there was a brilliant revival of Beautiful –The Carole King Musical at Leicester’s Curve, featuring the late Douglas McGrath’s first-class book, perfectly capturing the New York vibe like a Neil Simon comedy.

So, for what it’s worth, here’s our Top 10 list in alphabetical order:

1. A Strange Loop – Lyceum, New York

Audacious in its form, style and subject matter, A Strange Loop is a mighty meta musical which balances its self-irreverence and emotional intensity superbly. Like Hamilton, it’s the sort of show you want to plonk in front of detractors of musicals to show them the possibility of the form. This is a semi-autobiographical musical by a black, gay man about a black, gay man writing a musical, about a black, gay man writing a musical, and so on. Our leading man is an Usher at a popular Disney Broadway show, and Jackson scatters many gags about audiences, show business and generalised opinions on musical theatre (‘Have you seen Hamilton?’ generates eyerolls from Usher and his parents’ insistence that he ask Scott Rudin to produce A Strange Loop garners titters from a knowing audience). The show pulls no punches, and addresses uncomfortable issues with humour and pathos.

2. Billy Elliot – Curve, Leicester

This summer, Curve created a production which afforded Billy Elliot both the immense spectacle and touching intimacy it deserves. Nikolai Foster’s vision beautifully evoked a sense of community against a delicately balanced backdrop of political and emotional turmoil. The image of Billy dancing alone, dwarfed by the vast metallic tangle of the stage, was unexpectedly moving while the group numbers were rousing yet prophetic in their ominousness. The revival came at a time in history where Britain faces a similar state of economic and political crisis. It admirably demonstrated the capacity of the arts to truthfully reflect the cultural climate while transcending social, physical, and linguistic boundaries to express both individual and collective anger, grief and joy.

3. Cabaret – Kit Kat Klub at the Playhouse, London

This version of Cabaret brought to light new aspects of the musical. Rebecca Frecknall’s vision is relentless: we revel in decadence while being cowed by the undercurrent of menace. The performances were pitch-perfect and I anticipate this production will shape portrayals of these characters for some time to come. In all, one of the greatest pieces of praise I can offer is that I could see this production again and again and always find something new to enjoy or think about.

4.  Jerusalem – Apollo, London

I was 19 when I first saw Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem at the Apollo in 2011. For me, it was the play that sparked a love for going to see plays. I was lucky to get a £10 ticket that day but it didn’t surprise me to hear that people were queuing around the block and camping overnight to get tickets. Jerusalem captured a sense of urgency I hadn’t seen reflected elsewhere and hadn’t been able to articulate myself until that point. It struck a chord for me and a generation of other young audience members hungry to see it. Ian Rickson’s production returned to the Apollo this year with all the vitality and urgency it had first time round. It’s testament to the greatness of the play, so full of cultural and literary allusions, that it brought about other reference points and gained new meanings since it was first produced. By the end, the play has the audience believing in giants too.

5. Kimberly Akimbo – Booth, New York

David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori’s Kimberly Akimbo is a heart-warming, nourishing musical and a first-rate example of book and score complementing each other beautifully. Like with his play Good People (2011), Lindsay-Abaire is interested in the promises and rhetoric of the American Dream not being fully realised; characters with imperfections and major flaws but with hopes, fears and good intentions buried somewhere beneath the surface. And in the centre of the storm is Kimberly, played with such authenticity by Tony Award-winning soprano Victoria Clark. Kimberly is no ordinary teenager. Born with a disease that ages her body abnormally quickly, we hear that most people with her condition only have a life expectancy of about 17 years. We not only believe she’s 16 but her optimistic outlook and bright spark in her eyes is endearing without ever being overly sentimental. It’s destined to be the musical of the season and I’ll be rooting for it at next year’s Tony’s.

6. Life of Pi – Wyndham’s, London

Lolita Chakrabarti adapted Yann Martel’s ‘unadaptable’ novel Life of Pi for Sheffield Theatres which we saw in the West End earlier this year. Telling the story of Piscine Patel who survives a storm which capsizes the ship that his family and their zoo were on, Life of Pi is a remarkable achievement in epic storytelling. Its utter brilliance comes from how it highlights that theatre is a truly collaborative artform: from Tim Hatley’s set design to Nick Barnes & Finn Caldwell’s driftwood-style puppets to Andrzej Goulding’s video design to the seven Olivier Award-winning actors who played the tiger, all helmed by Max Webster’s production. Hatley’s design cleverly reconfigures the Wyndham’s stage into more of a thrust similar to Sheffield’s Crucible. The effect is that you find yourself moving in your seat with the motion of the lifeboat. Also clever is how, just like theatre, imagination and reality sit side by side, the sterile walls of the hospital existing in the same moment as the deep blue of the ocean. It may be closing in January but a UK tour and Broadway run start in 2023.

7. Rock/Paper/Scissors – Crucible/Lyceum/Studio, Sheffield

All three plays in Chris Bush’s Rock/Paper/Scissors triptych ran in Sheffield Theatres’ three spaces simultaneously with one cast. The overall piece was a logistical coup-de-théâtre. It was also a perfect coming together of space and place in three funny, achingly profound and heartful plays about a city and its people on the cusp of change. Set in present-day Sheffield across three locations of a former scissor factory, the plays explored the various stakeholders who all have a claim on what they’d like the space to be. From a nightclub or industrial chic making hub, to flats, to carrying on as a working factory, Rock/Paper/Scissors delved into the spaces and lives that make up the past, present and future of Sheffield.

8. Spring Awakening – Almeida, London

Rupert Goold rejected much of the whimsy of the original Broadway and London productions of Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s musical in favour of a starker exploration of the purgatory of adolescence, in which the characters are trapped within a childhood dictated by unfeeling adults. Spring Awakening may seem to be full of despair – and, to be fair, in our current political and social climate it’s difficult not to agree with such nihilistic sentiments – but the musical is not bereft of hope. In one of musical theatre’s most beautiful finales we were reminded that life continues, generations will grow, learn and prosper, and the pains endured in the pursuit of maturity are all threads in the rich tapestry of life. Yes, the plot is hard-hitting and damning, but we can all learn a thing or two about hope, change and empathy by looking to the past in remembrance of the future. This was a stunning production of a timely musical.

9. Tammy Faye – Almeida, London

Theatre lovers have whispered rumours for years about Elton John’s long-awaited Tammy Faye musical. Following the success of the recent Oscar-winning film based on the Televangelist’s life, audiences’ appetites had been well and truly whetted. The world of Tammy Faye Bakker is a marvel, and we’re encouraged to gawp and titter at the bizarre fantasy land on display, but the jokes are never mean and the action is peppered with a pathos that reminds us that these are real people and real events. John and Shears have written some cracking torch songs for their heroine, namely the Act One finale ‘Empty Hands’ and the empowering ballad ‘If You Came to See Me Cry’. Katie Brayben excelled during these moments, pouring her heart out and giving her all in a performance that is bound to garner many nominations come awards season.

10. The Piano Lesson – Ethel Barrymore, New York

One of the classiest revivals we saw this year was LaTanya Richardson Jackson’s production of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning The Piano Lesson (1987). One of Wilson’s Pittsburgh cycle of ten plays which chart the African American experience throughout the twentieth century, The Piano Lesson is set in 1936. Like in Two Trains Running which we saw in Northampton in 2019, Wilson’s dense text interweaves strands of prosaic gossip, banter, song and urban myth. But this family drama is also haunted by a spectral presence symbolic of America’s past as much as the Charles family’s. Beowulf Boritt’s set fills the stage with the Charles’ house, several floors and wooden beams go up to the roof, and an ornately carved piano dominates the living room. What makes Richardson Jackson’s production rich with texture are the superlative performances. Samuel L. Jackson as former railroad worker Doaker has an earthy quality and jovial bond with the others, but the standout performances belong to John David Washington as Doaker’s nephew Boy Willie and Michael Potts as Doaker’s brother. There’s an ease and authenticity among the cast which really sets the play alight. It concludes its limited run on 29^th January, 2023 but there are rumours of a London transfer.

From Left to Right:

Billy Elliot: Jaden Shentall-Lee. Credit: Marc Brenner

A Strange Loop: Jaquel Spivey. Credit: Marc J. Franklin

Jerusalem: Mark Rylance. Credit: Simon Annand

The Piano Lesson: Samuel L. Jackson. Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Life of Pi: The Tiger and Nuwan Hugh Perera. Credit: Ellie Kurttz

A Strange Loop

 Lyceum, New York

11^th October, 2022

“Big, black and queer-ass American Broadway show!”

Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer and Tony-award winning musical fits a lot into its 100 minutes. Audacious in its form, style and subject matter, A Strange Loop is a mighty meta musical which balances its self-irreverence and emotional intensity superbly. Like Hamilton, it’s the sort of show you want to plonk in front of detractors of musicals to show them the possibility of the form.

This is a semi-autobiographical musical by a black, gay man about a black, gay man writing a musical, about a black, gay man writing a musical, and so on. Our leading man (at this performance played by Kyle Ramar Freeman) is an Usher at a popular Disney Broadway show, and Jackson scatters many gags about audiences, show business and generalised opinions on musical theatre (‘Have you seen Hamilton?’ generates eyerolls from Usher and his parents’ insistence that he ask Scott Rudin to produce A Strange Loop garners titters from a knowing audience). Jackson also plays with expectation, stereotype and internalised racism, homophobia and cultural guilt; Usher continually pokes fun at himself for his fondness for ‘white girl music’, while simultaneously bemoaning his family’s preferred ‘Gospel Plays’ which perpetuate racial and religious cliches. Central to this derision is millionaire entertainer, Tyler Perry. A figure perhaps less well known outside the USA, Perry is known for writing, acting and directing works based on average African-American families, often resorting to racial stereotypes – the downtrodden husband; the sassy matriarch (often played by Perry himself – think Mrs Brown’s Boys for American audiences) – and Jackson doesn’t hold back in lacerating and inverting the expectations of what modern ‘Black’ entertainment should look like. Similarly, Usher’s sexuality is constantly under scrutiny, with taboo subjects regularly intruding his thoughts (eg. his father repeatedly asks if Usher wants to have sex with him, or whether he has HIV). Jackson also inspects the ways that the gay community are not immune from prejudice and propagating issues such as the fetishization of cultural identities and body-shaming - as seen in Usher’s internalized self-loathing concerning his appearance. The show pulls no punches, and addresses uncomfortable issues with humour and pathos.

Jackson is able to package an array of conflicting emotions all in one song, one of them which shows the breadth of his genius being ‘Periodically’. It starts off as a phone call from Usher’s mother to wish him a happy birthday and to say she loves him, before the gates then open to a relentless homophobic tirade. Lyrics such as “All of these Hollywood homosexuals” are sung to an upbeat, jaunty melody, before the song then pulls back to a slower piano melody. The song is uncannily brought to life by John-Andrew Morrison as Usher’s God-fearing mother. His performance (which was nominated for a Tony) shows their love and pain alongside their prejudice. And at the end of the show, Usher writes the gospel play his mother has always wanted him to write. Thrillingly realised by Stephen Brackett’s production and Arnulfo Maldonado’s design, the stage opens up to reveal his family home in a scene reminiscent of ‘Welcome to Our House on Maple Avenue’ from Fun Home, or perhaps even the contrived sitcom bonhomie of Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview. This scene culminates in the gob-smacking and epic satirical ‘Precious Little Dream / AIDS is God's Punishment’. Much of the show's emotional heft comes from Usher’s fractious relationship with his parents. The line between autobiography and fiction is blurred, Jackson once again playing with the idea of multiple versions of self.

We saw A Strange Loop on the day its closure was announced. Despite its fairly short Broadway run, the show has made its mark on musical theatre history. I hope it’s not the last we see of it or Jackson’s musical writing talents.

A Strange Loop plays at the Lyceum Theatre, New York until 15^th January, 2023

The company of A Strange Loop. Credit: Marc J. Franklin