Tezza's Theatre Place

Paul Hunter (Albin), Simon Hepworth (Mercédès) and Michael Matus (Georges) in La Cage aux Folles [The Play] at Park Theatre. Photo by Mark Douet. So, you’ve gone and done it. You’ve met the love of your life, wined and dined them and finally proposed. They’ve accepted and now it’s time to think about the wedding preparations. But before the big day itself, something else needs to happen. The two sets of parents need to meet. A daunting enough experience for any young couple, but if the respective families come from very differing backgrounds, then the problems can really mount. Welcome to the first English version of  La Cage aux Folles (The Play)  at the Park Theatre. Georges (Michael Matus) and Albin (Paul Hunter) are a fairly normal couple living in Saint Tropez. Well, normal may not be the ‘mot juste’. George is the owner of a nightclub called, La Cage aux Folles, and his partner Albin, is Madame Zaza, the star of the club’s cabaret. George loves his business, even if...

Hannah Norris – After You 2019 credit Mark Gambino. Do you ever think back and wonder what might have been, if….? Like if I hadn’t moved to Lancashire when I was 14 or joined the RAF when I was 21, etc. I’m sure we all do it at some time or another but, do we ever look at our parents and wonder what their life might have been like if they had gone down different paths in their lives? No, me neither. But, luckily for us, Hannah Norris had just that idea and the result is her one-act play  After You  which is currently playing at Soho Theatre. Written by and starring Hannah and her real-life mother Angela Norris,  After You  starts by looking at Angela’s early life. When she was 14, Angela was in the first-ever Australian production of  The Sound of Music  at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre in 1961. But, Angela’s career went no further than that and Hannah wonders if this is because of the social conventions of the time. Mother and daughter discuss this, fr...

Tosca – credit Ali Wright. “ People’s reaction to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic. They either love it or hate it. If they love it, they will always love it. If they don’t, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul. ” This is probably the most profound sentence uttered in the movie ‘Pretty Woman’. I remember my first opera, ‘Carmen’ at the ENO. I will not say it changed my life, but I was totally hooked on opera as an art form afterwards. Everyone should have a way into the wonderful world of opera, and one of the best I can recommend is at the Trafalgar Studios where they are currently staging  Opera Undone: Tosca & La bohème  sung in English, the two operas have been reviewed and re-written, bringing them firmly up to date, as individual one-hour productions. The night begins with  Tosca . In his studio, the painter Mario Cavaradossi (Roger Paterson) is working on a portrait of a lady. The lady is beautiful a...

Chaplin Birth of a Tramp – Photographer credit Davor@OcularCreative Charlie Chaplin is one of those actors that I thought I knew a bit about. I knew he was born and lived around the Elephant and Castle area – there used to be a pub named after him by the shopping centre. I also knew he was a star of many silent movies but fell out with Hollywood during the McCarthy era and moved to Switzerland. Of his life before fame, I knew nothing but thanks to the good folks at Arrows & Traps, and writer Ross McGregor, and their play  Chaplin: Birth of a Tramp , at the Jack Studio Theatre, I now know a lot more than I did before. The show starts in 1928 Hollywood where Charlie Chaplin (Conor Moss) is auditioning Virginia Cherrill (Laurel Marks), for the female lead in his next film. Cherrill has no real acting experience, but Charlie remembers her from a modelling shoot on Santa Monica beach. During the audition, Charlie’s brother, and business manager Sydney (Toby Wynn-Davies) comes i...

LEAVE A COMMENT Dad’s Army is still one of the absolute joys of the television world. Over 9 series, and 80 episodes, we followed the ups and downs of a group of, on the whole, elderly men in a quiet seaside town, ready to put their lives on the line in defence of their country. First transmitted in between 1968 and 1977, the show is regularly repeated on BBC2 on a Saturday night, and still pulls in 2 or 3 million viewers. The highly successful radio spin-off gets regular airings on BBC Radio 4 Extra. With such an iconic show, it might be thought to leave it alone. You can’t improve on perfection – and I’m sure the makers of the recent disastrous movie would concur. However, two men felt there was something more that could be done and last night I was lucky enough to see a performance of the  Dad’s Army Radio Show  at the British Library. The first thing to say is that Jimmy Perry and David Croft’s writing is still as fresh today as it ever was. The three episodes tha...