Tezza's Theatre Place

Elegies Company by Mark Senior PR To Southwark’s Union Theatre for a new production of a very unusual show with one of the most intriguing titles I’ve seen for quite a while,  Elegies for Angels, Punks, and Raging Queens . This is not a play, nor is it a conventional musical, instead  Elegies for Angels, Punks, and Raging Queens  is a song cycle with music by Janet Hood and lyrics and additional text by Bill Russell. It centres around the  NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt  and follows the individual stories of various people who have died from AIDS and have a patch on the quilt. Each story is different and very personal, but also really relatable for the audience. With one exception – Ailsa Davidson who plays Judith – the entire cast (Aidan Harkins, Althea Burey, Calum Gulvin, Charlie McCullagh, Chris Cahill, Fraser Leigh Green, Jackie Pulford, Jade Chaston, Jade Marvin, Kristine Kruse, Marcus Ayton, Matthew Grove, Michiel Janssens, Paige Fenlon and Rhys Ta...

What is ‘power’? According to an online dictionary, power is the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events. However, even with this definition, whilst many people believe they have power, very few actually do. There is a moment in Game of Thrones when Queen Cersei, explains the concept to Lord Baelish in three words, “Power is power”. Knowing who actually wields power is one of the conundrums that remains at the end of Oscar Wilde’s 1891 play  Salomé  which is Lazarus Theatre Company’s final production in their season at Greenwich Theatre. Things are not going well in the Roman province of Judea. Herod Antipas (Jamie O’Neill), the Tetrarch does not have a secure hold on the reigns of power in his country, Herod has many distractions in his life. There are rivals for his throne – which he basically holds at the will of Caesar – and there is unrest in his province. Chief among those causing unrest is a Judean prophet by the ...

Since 1912, the Blackburn Musical Theatre Company has been entertaining the theatre going folks of this Lancashire town with their annual musical production.  In that time, they have covered the vast array of musical theatre from their first production - Sunday - through to their latest - Hello Dolly - which I caught at the Blackburn Empire Theatre. Dolly Gallagher Levi (Sue Chadwick) is a woman that likes to meddle, or as she puts it, arrange things.  Whatever you need doing, Dolly is the person for the job. And right now, she is the talk of turn of the century New York, having brought together Mr Horace Vandergelder (Kris Wlodarczyk), the well-known half-a-millionaire and Mrs Irene Molloy (Laura Mitchell) a widowed millener. Their engagement and subsequent marriage seems pretty much sewn up though neither is marrying for love.  Horace, as he tells his Chief Clerk, Cornelius Hackl (Ryan Coe), and Assistant, Barnaby Tucker (Fletcher Illingworth), is looking fo...