Tezza's Theatre Place

For the first five minutes as I sat watching  Dennis of Penge  at the Ovalhouse, I was wondering what exactly I had got myself into. Annie Siddons story had started with a strange Prologue followed by an even stranger sermon to chicken. Now I’m no stranger to the bargain bucket but I don’t think I’ve ever been moved to write about it let alone share my finger licking good experiences with a theatre audience. Unlike Annie and her co-performers Asaf Zohar and Jorell Coiffic Kamal. So, there I was, sitting there thinking this could be a very long two hours when we moved on to “Introducing Wendy” and without realising it, I was completely hooked on this tale of Wendy, Dennis, Neil, Hortense, Clovis, Deb, Sylvie and the other denizens of SE20. All of whom, Annie breathes life into through her writing. Now don’t go thinking  Dennis of Penge  is a regular play, because it definitely isn’t. On the Ovalhouse website, it is described as “part gig, part poetry, part thea...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/169645/review-adam-eve-and-steve-the-kings-head-theatre/ Steve (Dale Adams) Eve (Hayley Hampson) Adam (Joseph Robinson) Ask any devout Christian why they are against homosexuality and their first reaction is to reach for the trusty bible and open it to either Leviticus 18 or Genesis 1. Now Leviticus is easy to discredit – just look at the list of things that are banned in that chapter and you see why – but Genesis is a little more difficult, after all, everyone knows it takes a man and a woman to produce offspring and populating the world would have been difficult without a lot of babies being born. However, supposing there had been some judicious editing done to Genesis before publication and instead of God creating just Adam and Eve, he actually created Adam & Eve… And Steve? Well, wonder no more and just pop along to the King’s Head Theatre where a new musical of that name has just arrived to set the record ‘straight’. All is going exc...

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/158698/the-trackers-of-oxyrhynchus-finborough-theatre/ Many plays that are performed take place over a limited time span. Anything from a few hours to a couple of days. However, there is the odd one that spans a time period from the 5th Century BC to 2017, a range of some 2500 years. Not an easy feat you may think and to cover this in seventy-five minutes is nigh on impossible. However, it is not only possible but is currently happening at the Finborough Theatre where  The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus  has returned to London after nearly thirty years. The story starts in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt where archaeologists and Oxford Dons Grenfell (Tom Purbeck) and Hunt (Richard Glaves) are searching amongst the ancient papyrus fragments matching the pieces to make documents. Whilst most of the re-united fragments are fairly mundane – mostly pleas from the local peasantry – Grenfell is looking for something in particular. Prodded by a vision of the God ...