Tezza's Theatre Place

Ciarán Hinds (Hugh), Colin Morgan (Owen), Adetomiwa Edun (Lieutenant Yolland). Image by Catherine Ashmore Love it or loathe it, the British Empire is a rich source of material that is ready-made for novels or plays – usually suggesting the English were bad while everyone else good. However, some writers have approached the subject in less obvious ways and one of those is Irish playwright Brian Friel, whose 1980 play  Translations  has recently been revived at the National Theatre. 1833 and in the quiet community of Baile Beag, life continues much as it always has. The inhabitants are an insular lot who speak Irish, Greek and Latin – thanks to a knowledge of the classics and the teachings of the Catholic church – but who don’t speak English, the language of their rulers. In the local ‘hedge’ school, aspiring teacher Manus (Seamus O’Hara) is working with Sarah (Michelle Fox) a local girl with a severe speech impediment. His father, schoolmaster Hugh (Ciarán Hinds) has not ye...

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...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/153579/swan-lakeloch-na-heala-by-michael-keegan-dolan/ Swan Lake by Michael Keegan-Dolan. Photo by Colm Hogan Sometimes a review is the easiest thing in the world to write. Everything works with a show and the words flow so fast I can’t type them fast enough. At other times, it is the opposite. For whatever reason, or reasons, the words don’t run smoothly. Michael Keegan-Dolan’s  Swan Lake/Loch  na  hEala  at Sadler’s Wells is an example of the latter type. Loosely based on the traditional tale, this version has been transferred to contemporary times and moved to a small town in Ireland. Loosely based on the traditional tale, this version has been transferred to contemporary times and moved to a small town in Ireland. The princess is a thirty-six-year-old man (Alexander Leonhartsberger), with mental illness, living with his mother (Elizabeth Cameron Dalman) in a run-down house in rural Ireland. Unusually for what...