Tezza's Theatre Place

A scene from My Brilliant Friend Part 1 centre Catherine McCormack – image by Marc Brenner. Some stories cannot be told in a single sitting. Think Harry Potter. The last book was made into two films and the ‘The Cursed Child’ is two plays. The reason I’m mentioning this is because after seeing  My Brilliant Friend Parts 1 and 2 , at the National Theatre, it struck me that making one book into two plays is hard enough but April De Angelis must have really had their work cut out in converting the four books in Elena Ferrante’s ‘Neapolitan Novels’ into two individual shows. My Brilliant Friend  concerns the friendship of two ladies. When we first meet them Lenù Greco (Niamh Cusack) and Lila Cerullo (Catherine McCormack) are 8-years-old and living in a run-down area of Naples where poverty and small-time crime families are the name of the game. They bond over an incident where they swap dolls and then toss them through a grille into a cellar belonging to the local loan shark. S...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/178307/review-of-lazarus-theatre-companys-the-taming-of-the-shrew/ Lazarus Theatre Company’s The Taming of the Shrew Shakespeare wrote his many plays, sonnets, etc over 400 years ago, when times were very different. Should his work, therefore, be judged against current standards of morality and political correctness? Well, probably not but I have a confession to make. There is one Shakespeare play that I have assiduously avoided. This is mainly because I have thought that no matter how the text is treated, the basic premise of the play will always be wrong from every standpoint and, rather than be entertained, I will end up incensed by the production. However, I was recently persuaded to give it a go and so headed to the Jack Studio Theatre to see Lazarus Theatre Company’s production of  The Taming of the Shrew . The production starts before it starts and, there is a great deal going on as the audience take their seats, so it is definitely w...