4 x 4 Ephemeral Architectures at Oxford Playhouse

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There were some really lovely moments. In one scene, the jugglers were working with clubs, rolling them in circles on the floor. They became waves, and the ballet dancers leant on the jugglers backs, as if they were floating. In another scene, the jugglers were working with hoops, and the ballet dancers flowed among them effortlessly, somehow never bringing the whole display crashing down . . . Maybe ballet, and juggling, and living, do share something. Each requires precision. Each has a pattern, and if everyone understands the pattern then you don’t end up crashing into one another.

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ANNIE on tour

ANNIE on tour

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The director, Nikolai Foster, has give us a spirited little girl, winsome in all the right places, yet streetwise enough to make her way on the mean streets amongst the other industrial waste from a heartless economic system, yet with enough innocent brass to give ‘Mr President’ a pointer or two on how to solve the world’s economic problems. Last night’s Annie, Sophia Pettit, was everything the director could have wanted: with a bright, attractive singing voice and a confidence that belied her years she radiated the optimism that forms the cornerstone of this show’s message and is summed up in the anthemic “Tomorrow”.

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BRISTOL FESTIVAL OF PUPPETRY 2015

BRISTOL FESTIVAL OF PUPPETRY 2015

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L’HOMME CONTENT DE RIEN at the Tobacco Factory on 4th September by La Compagnie des Chemins de Terre. A jovial undertaker, Rene, struggles, partly perhaps through nerves, to contain his ebullient nature whilst addressing the audience who stand in as the relatives of a deceased man killed in some kind of accident. Before him, a banquet set out for the wake is covered by a cloth which, when drawn over the feast, becomes a shroud covering the body. It is the first of the transformations that structure this cunning piece of object theatre.

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MRS HENDERSON PRESENTS at the Theatre Royal, Bath

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This is a play about age, fortitude, life, sex and much else, with a nod to the indignities of censorship. If I was at times a little lost as to where the play was taking me it didn’t really matter since, like the revue it documents and dramatises it is a gallimaufry of cameos, not least Graham Hoadly’s, Lord Cromer whose Lord Chamberlain’s song is a clever blend of Gilbert and Sullivan, Monty Python with a dash of Benny Hill.

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THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME on tour

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME on tour

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Part detective story, part road trip, part family drama and part psychological analysis with comic notes, the play defies easy categorization. . . The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time has us consider a life without metaphor and stripped of the petty emotions that lubricate or irritate human interaction. . . The final positive message of the play is that it is not really a question of ‘us and them’, but rather of the varieties of humanity being on a continuum. Could anything be more positive?

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AS YOU LIKE IT in the gardens of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

AS YOU LIKE IT in the gardens of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

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The setting is very important in this production. The director, Tom Littler, has chosen to set the play in Nazi-occupied France during World War II – Duke Frederick is a Nazi-collaborator, while the exiles in the woods are the French resistance. This clever interpretation gives an interesting, modern dimension to the play . . . All in all, this was a wonderful romp in the woods; just as Shakespeare himself would have liked it.

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