In theory, E Nesbit’s classic story has all the ingredients and potential for a very successful stage show. There are endearing characters, nice locations and the opportunity for some amazing special effect and there is even an ending weepy enough to ensure a lot of damp hankies . . . Talking Scarlet has produced an ambitious musical adaptation which just scrapes by, but only by the skin of its teeth . . .
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Vamos are masters of body language. Wearing full-face masks, not a word is spoken throughout the 80-minute performance. Yet we know exactly what is in the minds of the players, and what they are conveying to one another. In the hunch of a shoulder, the flick of a head, or the fidgeting of fingers, not only do we get all the narrative we need, but the layers that language can introduce are stripped away, leaving us with pure essence of character . . .
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The bath, which dominates the stage, is used to good effect, being able to spawn and conceal figures from Grant’s damaged mind like a clever magician. The bath (a means of self-cleansing, geddit?) is, wouldn’t you just know it, blocked. Despite numerous entreaties by Penny and the liberal use of a plunger, it remains so until the end . . . Theatre Témoin is an original and innovative young company whose heart is undoubtedly in the right place . . .
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Haughty, hyper-liberal Emily (Emily Bowker) and fumbling Oliver (Alistair Whatley) are facing financial difficulties and relocate their small family from London to an undefined northern town in order to pinch pennies and live around what Emily so condescendingly calls “real people.” Here they meet their new neighbours – quiet receptionist Dawn (an under-utilised Kerry Bennett) and motor-mouthed postman Alan (Graeme Brookes). Both are true locals. Dawn has never moved street – she was born across the road.
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You wouldn’t know it, but Emily Atack is making her stage debut in this recast touring production from Leicester’s Curve Theatre. She has not allowed the iconic status of the character of Holly Golightly to prevent her from making the part her own. She captures that breezy self-belief of the mildly delusional in her portrayal of the country girl who has come to the big city with a dream and remade herself – name and all – as a fashionable socialite with no visible means of support beyond the men of various shapes and sizes who fall under her spell.
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Mercury Theatre Colchester has arrived at the Oxford Playhouse this week with their polished, confident, and cringingly funny production of Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park. Set in the same suburban American house, with the first act set in the 1950s and the second in the modern day, Norris explores some fairly uncomfortable themes of societal prejudice and resentment with humour and clever, realistic dialogue . . . This is an engaging and hard-hitting play which will have you shifting uncomfortably in your seat.
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