Tezza's Theatre Place

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/193202/edward-ii-review-greenwich-theatre-london/ Lazarus Theatre’s Edward II 2017 – Photo by Adam Trigg “ Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely ” or so the saying goes. But, what is power in this context? For example, an absolute monarch appears to have total power over their domain but, in reality, this is an illusion and their hold on the throne and all that goes with it is very fragile and subject to the will of many others. Lazarus Theatre Company demonstrates this superbly in their new production of Marlowe’s  Edward II  at the Greenwich Theatre. Edward I is dead and his fourth son inherits the throne and assumes the title of Edward II (Timothy Blore). Edward is young, only 23 at the time of his accession, and his youth shows when, despite all the warnings of his court, Edward invites his favourite minion Piers Gaveston (Oseloka Obi) to return to England and join his court. Although not a nobleman by bir...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/179160/review-the-wasp-jermyn-street-theatre/ Lisa Gorgin and Selina Giles in The Wasp – Photographer Andreas Grieger I suppose I was very lucky at school. Although being short, wearing glasses and having ‘FA Cup’ ears, I don’t remember ever being bullied about theses things. Though I did get my ears fixed and once ‘lost’ a pair of NHS glasses as I hated them, so maybe things did get said after all. The point is, that whatever may have happened it was obviously pretty mild and so I’ve forgotten about it. I’m one of the lucky ones. For some people school is a place they go to to be tortured either mentally, verbally or physically. For them, school doesn’t end when they hit 16 and leave. For them, these events may live in their mind for years to come, and this is the premise behind Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s play  The Wasp  at the Jermyn Street Theatre. Outside a nondescript coffee shop, two women sit and drink tea. Heather (Selina Giles) is...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/177561/review-of-yank-at-charing-cross-theatre/ The company of YANK! at Charing Cross Theatre, credit Claire Bilyard 50 years ago, in 1967, homosexuality was partially decriminalised in England. In 2000 it became legal to be gay and a member of the UK armed forces. In the USA, the ban on gay folk serving wasn’t fully lifted until 2011. Why do I tell you this, you may ask. Well, the reason is that during WWII it was illegal to be gay in the armed forces and, despite the desperate need for men and women to serve, LGB personnel were persecuted by the military police for being who they were. Yet, when general conscription has been announced and the military machine is desperate for manpower, it’s inconceivable that the odd gayer didn’t slip past and serve their country. Their stories were never told until now as Joseph and David Zellnik’s musical  Yank!  opens at the Charing Cross Theatre. It’s 1942 and the USA has finally noticed that E...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/172994/review-border-men-kings-head-theatre/ On the 26th May 1952, East Germany implemented a “special regime on the demarcation line” between itself and West Germany. The demarcation line or border was one of the world’s most heavily fortified frontiers, defined by a continuous line of high metal fences and walls, barbed wire, alarms, anti-vehicle ditches, watchtowers, automatic booby traps and minefields. It was patrolled by 50,000 armed East Germans all tasked with the job of ensuring that the happy workers of the DDR weren’t corrupted by going over to the decadent West. The guards were, of course, humans and humans have emotions and dreams. Jack Westerman has used this backdrop at this time for his new play  Border Men  at the King’s Head Theatre. Out in the hinterland of the border, a lone soldier comes into the guard hut. His name is Sgt Dieter Hertwig (Chris Barritt) and, tonight he is early for his inspection of the fence. Afte...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/171908/review-room-theatre-royal-stratford-east/ Fela Lufadeju, Harrison Wilding and Witney White – Room (c) Scott Rylander One of the strongest bonds on the planet is that between a mother and her child. Very little can break that under normal circumstances but what if that mother has brought her son into the world under conditions of extreme and continual duress? Welcome to Emma Donoghue’s  Room  which is receiving its world premiere at the Theatre Royal Stratford East this month. Little Jack (Harrison Wilding) is five years old today. To him, this is a momentous day as he is now grown up and his inner voice, Big Jack (Fela Lufadeju) can’t wait to celebrate his birthday with Ma (Witney White). However, unlike other children, Jack and Ma will be celebrating in Room, the single space in which they live and Jack’s entire world. Seven years previously, Ma – then a 19-year-old girl – was abducted by Old Nick (Liam McKenna) who has impriso...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/171838/review-yael-farbers-salome-olivier-theatre/ Isabella Nefar in Salomé a new play by Yaël Farber. Photo by Johan Persson Most people who have been brought up in some form of Christian society know certain stories from the bible. However, supposing those stories were not just wrong but in fact virtually the opposite of everything you thought you knew. If it was Adam that tempted Eve with the apple, or Samson tricking Delilah into cutting his hair, or Lot deliberately turning his wife around so she turned into a pillar of salt. Why these biblical musings you may wonder? Well last night, at the National Theatre, I saw Yaël Farber’s version of  Salomé  and, believe me, that really turned my knowledge of the story on its head. The story opens with Nameless (Olwen Fouéré) on the day of her death being questioned by Pontius Pilate (Lloyd Hutchinson), prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, who has been summoned back to Rome to explain ...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/168794/the-inevitable-disappearance-of-edward-j-neverwhere/ The Inevitable Disappearance of Edward J. Neverwhere  is a new piece of work that is currently at BasicSpace in Peckham. Before we start, there is one thing that needs to be made clear. We are not looking at your average tale with Edward J. Neverwhere here. Edward (William Sebag-Montefiore) is not real, he is the paper creation of a young boy who needs a friend of his own to help him cope with the awful home life he has. The boy shares everything he can with Edward, including his most prized possession and for his part, Edward promises to always be with his young friend. However, things change and as the boy changes, so does Edward, who finds that the only certainty in life is that one day it will end. Paper dominates this performance of  The Inevitable Disappearance of Edward J. Neverwhere  and on entering the performance space the audience is free to wander around and r...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/167017/a-clockwork-orange-park-theatre-review/ Did you know that as at the time of me writing this, there are over 88,000 people languishing in one of Her Majesty’s jails in the United Kingdom. According to the Home Office, the cost of keeping one prisoner in jail is just over £33,000 per year. Multiply the first figure by the second and that’s a lot of money that could be spent on other things. It’s no wonder that rehabilitation is one of the main purposes of the penal system. So, if you are, for example, Minister of the Interior and a doctor comes to you with a bold new treatment that is guaranteed to reform any prison inmate and within two weeks make them a safe, member of society, able to be released once more into the world then you would give it a try wouldn’t you? This is the backbone of Action the Word’s award-winning production of  A Clockwork Orange  which has just opened at The Park Theatre. Based on Anthony Burgess’ novel of...

http://www.lastminutetheatretickets.com/londonwestend/crime-and-punishment-brockley-jack-studio-theatre-review/ When you consider the vast wealth of literature available in the world, you sometimes have to wonder why playwrights decide that certain books should be turned into a piece of theatrical entertainment. For example, imagine taking a novel with around twenty-two listed characters and which the author originally divided into six distinct parts with an epilogue and then distilling all of this down to a ninety-minute one-act play three actors. Personally, I would have given up within the first five minutes. However, Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus have more fortitude than me and so, they gave the treatment to Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1866 novel  Crime and Punishment  and the result of their work can be seen at Brockley’s famous Jack Studio Theatre The play starts with two men in an office. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, (Christopher Tester) is a young man who, going ...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/166447/what-shall-we-do-with-the-cello-review-vault-festival/ The Vault Festival is renowned for the diversity of its productions. Over the course of the festival, there will be a show or two that are pure ‘marmite’, loved by some and disliked by others. An example of this can be found in Atelier Theatre Studio’s UK premiere of Matei Visniec’s  What Shall We Do With the Cello? . The action is set in a waiting room where there are four chairs, a cello and a bow. Suddenly, in rushes, a man (Nick Allen) obviously getting away from the storm outside. He picks up the cello and starts to play. The music is very contemporary, with hard, discordant notes that jar the ears rather than a flowing melody. Soon after the man starts to play, the Lady with the Veil (Simona Armstrong) enters. She is young and pretty but and has a rather prim and proper appearance. The two of them are not alone for long and are soon joined by The Man with the Stick (Mihai A...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/165886/the-hiv-monologues-ace-hotel/ The HIV Monologues (c) Eliza Goroya According to the National AIDS Trust, in 2015 nearly 90,000 in the UK received HIV specialist care. That’s quite a figure. HIV is no respecter of gender, age, sexual orientation or religion and between 2006 and 2015, there has been a 73% increase in the number of people accessing HIV care. It’s a difficult subject to talk about, and one probably avoided at most dinner parties. But Patrick Cash’s new play  The HIV Monologues  which I saw at the Ace Hotel, Shoreditch, is a wonderful way to get the conversation started. ‘Resting’ actor Alex (Denholm Spurr) has a lot going on at the moment. Not only is he about to go on a first date with Tinder match Nick (Kane Surry) but tomorrow, he is going to a hospital to audition for a role in a play by writer Barney (Jonathan Blake). Alex and Nick’s date is going well – after Nick’s horrendous opening flirting and dreaming up ...

http://www.carnstheatrepassion.com/review-hip-the-2017-vault-festival-until-feb-5th/ Remember the old song,”if you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise”? Well, let’s bring it right up to date with some new lyrics so, altogether now “If you go down to the Vaults this month you’re sure of a big surprise”. Yes, the annual Vaults festival is back causing thousands of people to go underneath Waterloo station, walk along the fascinating road known as graffiti street and enter a subterranean world where not just every night is a different but every hour brings surprises galore. Last night I had my first visit to the festival of 2017, to see Jolie Booth’s one woman show Hip. Now, the first thing about this show you need to know is that this is not an ordinary show. Any production that starts with a notice at the entrance stating “This is an Extra-live Performance. Audiences are invited to respond to a show in whatever way feels natural; Latecomers’ are permitted” is n...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/164377/out-there-on-fried-meat-ridge-rd-at-the-white-bear-theatre/ On Fried Meat Ridge Road  (incidentally, a real road in West Virginia) is a run down sort of motel owned by a grizzled old-timer called Flip (Michael Wade) who is happy to call a spade a spade and for whom political correctness is something that happened to other people. Still, he runs a pretty tight motel, especially with the help of hillbilly handyman J.D. (Keith Stevenson). J.D. is a friendly soul and has recently advertised for a roommate to join him and partake of his speciality food, tuna sandwiches and a Lee Marvin (vodka and Mountain Dew). The timing is perfect for down at luck Mitch (Robert Moloney) who had not had a good time recently and is looking for somewhere to live that will widen his social circle. Whether he really wants to widen that circle to include trailer trash couple Tommy (Dan Hilderbrand) and Marlene (Melanie Gray) who don’t exactly discuss their pers...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/162872/bu21-trafalgar-studio-two-review/ BU21: Theatre503, Clive Kene, Graham O’Mara and Florence Roberts. Image courtesy of David Monteith-Hodge You may remember a few years ago on Emmerdale they dropped a plane on the village. As you would expect in a soap opera, the effect was devastating for a good month or so but then people and stories moved on and it never gets mentioned anymore. Real life is of course, different to television and it takes a long time for individuals to recover from a devastating event, a theme which is examined in Steven Slade’s BU21 at the Trafalgar Studios. There has been a terrorist incident in the UK. Using a scarily easily obtained hand-held surface to air launcher, a terrorist cell has shot down a commercial airline which has crashed to the ground wiping out part of Fulham. Six people connected to the events of that day come together to tell their story and explain the effects of the terrorist action. Graham (Graha...