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...

Do you know who Ada Lovelace or Charles Babbage are? The chances are that you will say no to the first and yes to the second name. Well, back in the 19th Century, Ada Lovelace carried out pioneering computing work on the Analytical Engine with Charles Babbage. Ada is one of the great unsung heroines of science whose works are only known by the men they collaborated with. Of course, that was the 19th Century and things are so much different today aren’t they? Unfortunately not. Historically the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) specialisations have always been perceived as the purview of men. This is one of the themes running through Katie Granger’s play  Ares  being performed during the final week of the Vault Festival in Waterloo. This one-woman show tells the story of Alice (Andrea Hall) a young lady who has moved from a humble farm – where she was brought up by her father after her mother abandoned the family – through to becoming an astrophysicis...

Simon Lipkin as Martin, Laurence operated by Hugh Purves and Charlie Brooks as Tamora in All in a Row. Photograph: Nick Rutter It’s not often a play causes so much controversy – even an online petition to have it pulled – before it even opens. But this has been the case with Alex Oates’ production  All in a Row  which has received its world premiere at Southwark Playhouse. This is the story of Tam (Charlie Brooks), Martin (Simon Lipkin) and their eleven-year-old son Laurence (Hugh Purves (Puppeteer). Laurence is severely autistic. His autism is so bad that he can only communicate in a series of grunts and a form of sign language and, in addition to his parents, needs the assistance of a paid carer, Gary (Michael Fox). The parents love their son and cope with his condition in their own way. Tam is a high flying entrepreneur and motivational speaker who likes to relax with a glass of wine at the end of the day, while Martin is a stay-at-home dad who allows his mind to ...

Micha Colombo as Prospero.  Photo by Adam Trigg. How important is gender these days? Worry not, this is a review not a political commentary, but gender has recently been at the forefront of news around the world. The thing I, it’s not a new phenomenon, back in William Shakespeare’s day, only men were permitted to act on stage – bringing up the vision of a burly bearded bloke in a dress playing the teenage Juliet. Recently, the National Theatre put on a very well received version of  Twelfth Night  with a female Malvolio. Groundbreaking Lazarus Theatre Company have taken this idea a stage further with their version of  The Tempest , the first of their three production series at the Greenwich. The story is the same. Prospero (Micha Colombo) has been usurped as Duke of Milan by an alliance of her sister, Antonio (Peace Oseyenum), Alonzo (Nicolas Salmon), King of Naples and Sebastian (Nell Hardy) the King’s sister. Thanks to the intervention of a friendly noble, G...

Whenever we hear of the downfall of a famous person, someone is bound to say that their problem was ,they flew too close to the sun - or something along those lines. A strange expression but a famous one and I wonder how many people know where it originated.  Well, if you get yourself along to the Unicorn Theatre for the first UK production of Katrin Lange’s Icarus, you just might find out. Icarus (Marshall Defender Nyanhete) is the eldest son of Daedalus (Selva Rasalingam) and is an unhappy boy. His father, who is a builder by trade, has gone missing.  The family last heard of him arriving in Crete where he was starting work on a hush hush job.  But since then, not a word or, more importantly, any money has come back to Icarus, his mother, and siblings.  The plucky youngster decided to go and find his father and sets off, complete with a home-made jumper on his adventure. In Crete, Icarus and Daedalus meet up and he learns that his father is working for King ...

It’s always good to see a production transfer from the fringe into the West End, so I was really pleased to be invited along to review Kevin Elyot’s  Coming Clean  which following a successful revival at the King’s Head Theatre in July 2017, has now opened at the Trafalgar Studios. Tony (Lee Knight) and Greg (Stanton Plummer-Cambridge) have been together for five years and seem to be happy in their relationship. Although they are a couple, they are open, which leaves Tony free to hit the discos with his best friend and total ‘scene queen’ William (Elliot Hadley) in search of a bit of ‘trade’. Tony is a frustrated writer and Greg is an author and teacher, which leaves little room for domesticity in their Kilburn flat. In an effort to restore harmony, Tony hires a cleaner, Robert (Tom Lambert) a young resting actor. Whilst young and apparently fairly naive, Robert is erudite and educated and, although Greg initially, doesn’t seem keen on him, he fits in well with the househ...

Andy Nyman (Tevye) image by Johan Persson. As we get to the end of another year of reviewing, my mind has turned to the traditional list of my top ten shows for 2018. It was pretty much settled until last night when a visit to the Menier Chocolate Factory to see the new production of  Fiddler on The Roof  has caused a rethink in the rankings. It is 1905 and in the Russian shtetl of Anatevka, Tevye (Andy Nyman) a farmer lives with his wife Golde (Judy Kuhn) and his five daughters Tzeitel (Molly Osborne ), Hodel (Harriet Bunton), Chava (Kirsty MacLaren ), Shprintze (Lia Cohen/Shoshana Ezequiel/Valentina Theodoulou) and Bielke (Sofia Bennett/Lottie Casserley/Matilda Hopkins). The family are very poor – barely on the breadline, it could be said – but somehow Tevye manages to keep his spirits up and, amongst his fellow Jews in the village, he is respected as a stout member of the community. This day, there is good news for the family. Tevye has met a drifter by the name of Perc...

Rupert Street Lonely Hearts Club – Photo by PBGstudios In ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Harper Lee came up with one of the most quoted sentences of all time. “ You can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family, an’ they’re still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge ’em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don’t .” Most people only know and use the first part of the quote, especially if a member of their family has exasperated them – I use it all the time about my brothers – but, in writing these words, Harper has perfectly summed up the central theme in Jonathan Harvey’s 1995 play  Rupert Street Lonely Hearts Club  which has just opened the Above the Stag Theatre. At No 15 Rupert Street, hairdresser Shaun (Tom Whittaker) is living a good old life. He is happily cohabiting with his girlfriend Juliet. His life isn’t bad. The business is doing OK and his home life is good. Well apart from the fact that Juliet has had to go to Barbados for a fe...

There are some – the current incumbent of the White House for example – who believe that climate change doesn’t exist. There are many many others who not only accept the fact it exists but actually believe the planet is doomed environmentally. The surprising thing is that whilst many of those that do accept climate change will be very environmentally friendly at home, they will still have a car and go on a family holiday abroad once or twice a year. I’m not here to judge but, I think that playwright Mike Bartlett would definitely have something to say as his play  Earthquakes in London  is presented by SEDOS at the Bridewell Theatre. The play centres around the lives of three sisters. Sarah (Carrie Pennifer) is the Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Environment in the coalition government. Freya (Kimberly Barker) is a teaching assistant currently on maternity leave. Finally, there is the youngest Jasmine (Izzi Richardson) nineteen and feckless not really sure of what...

Blueberry Toast prod images. Adrianna Bertola and Matt Barkley. Credit Helen Maybanks & Soho Theatre. Back in the day, many toys were operated by a clockwork mechanism, You would wind the key, feeling the spring inside tighten up until it would go no more, then push a button, the spring was released and the toy would charge off doing whatever it was supposed to do. I mention this because the idea of winding a mechanism until it goes off is at the heart of Mary Laws’ play Blueberry Toast which is receiving its European premiere at the Soho Theatre. On a normal Sunday morning, poetry teacher Walt (Gareth David-Lloyd) is marking texts in the kitchen of his lovely suburban home. His doting wife Barb (Gala Gordon) has asked him what he would like for breakfast and, having got his order, has started to make him blueberry toast. Whilst breakfast is beig prepared, the couple’s children, the whimsically named Jack (Matt Barkley) and Jill (Adrianna Bertola), are working on a four-act pl...

The Night Alive Have you ever been banjaxed? I first heard that word a good many years ago when Terry Wogan used it in his radio show. It’s a good Irish word meaning among other things confounded. The reason I mention this is because I was left feeling banjaxed after seeing Conor McPherson’s The Night Alive at the Jack Studio Theatre in Brockley Tommy (David Cox) is in his early fifties. He is a bit of a jack-the-lad but he is also lonely. He is estranged from his wife and kids and is currently living in a little room in the house owned by his uncle Maurice (Dan Armour). Tommy doesn’t really work in the conventional sense of the word. He has a van and, with the help of his friend Doc (Eoin Lynch), he makes some sort of living doing odd jobs and moving things for people. Doc and Tommy rub along just fine until one night when Tommy rescues a young girl called Aimee (Bethan Boxall) from being beaten and takes her home, which like Tommy himself, may not be much to look at but is at lea...

Andrea Miller, Emily Jane Kerr, Christian James, Tori Allen-Martin, Prince Plockey and Christopher Lyne in H.R.Haitch (Credit of Nick Rutter) Back, in the midsts of time, royal weddings were so easy. The reigning monarch would check their progeny and marry them off to another monarch’s child thus securing alliances and securing their own future. Love was never a feature of the deal but if it happened between the youngsters then that was just an added bonus. Nowadays, prince and princesses of the realm, lead a more normal life. They go off to school, university and then jobs. They get to meet and mix with, ordinary members of the public and, who knows, maybe they even get to fall in love all by themselves. This then is the central premise behind  H. R. Haitch  which recently opened at the Union Theatre. London 2011 and revolution is in the air. The coalition government has fallen and there is a new party in charge under a new Prime Minister Nathan (Prince Plockey). One of ...

Ever think about retirement? I must admit I am starting to and face the prospect with absolute dread. I know some people look forward to giving up work and spending the halcyon days of their lives in a relaxed and carefree way in the company of friends and loved ones. That was certainly the plan for the couple in Adrian McLoughlin’s play  The Golden F**king Years  currently being presented by Vital Signs Productions & Andrew Livingstone Productions at the Brockley Jack. On a sun-drenched balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, two people sit. Gordon (Adrian McLoughlin) and Helen (Deborah Maclaren) have been married for 18 years and are now retired. They spend their days relaxing in their apartment, drinking gin and reading – and their nights at the local bar. The couple don’t have a hectic life. After all, they aren’t as young as they once were – Gordon is nearly 70 – so obviously their pace of life has slowed down. In fact, Gordon seems happy to drink his way through ...

You Can’t Take It With You – Photo Credit Sedos Photos As Harper Lee stated “ You can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family ” I bet every one of us has thought/said that at some time in our lives. Your family always knows the best way to embarrass you – especially at the wrong time, and can always be relied on to do something when least expected that will remain seared into your friends’ brains forever. The bad news is that this is no new thing as a trip to the Bridewell Theatre to see George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s  You Can’t Take It With You  will prove. Alice Sycamore (Izzi Richardson) is nervous. She has met and fallen in love with Tony Kirby (Graeme Langford) a wonderful man at her office – well he is the son of the president of the company, Anthony W. Kirby (Craig Karpel) – and has decided that it’s time he met her family. For most people, this would be trauma enough but for Alice, it’s even worse as her family is, to put it mildly, a little e...