Tezza's Theatre Place

Fight Night. VAULT Festival. Photo Mark Senior. (Pete Grimwood and Edward Linard). Now here’s a conundrum. I love going to The Vaults Festival and I really enjoy immersive theatre. However, even my best friends wouldn’t call me sporty in any way and I am really not all that keen on boxing – two men fight in a ring and get paid millions, two men fight in the street and end up in the cells. So you can imagine that when I was asked to go to the Vaults and see an immersive production set around a boxing match I was in two minds as to what to do. However, FOMO being the mother of all necessity, along I went to see Exit Productions latest production  Fight Night . The production is set in the world of boxing where a new promoter has set up a match between an old boxing pro, Ian “Bam Bam” Bradshaw and an up and coming usurper to the crown, Joe Williams. However,  Fight Night  is so much more than a boxing match and over the roughly 90 minutes run time, the audience get ...

There’s not many things that get me travelling out to West London in the early hours of a rainy Wednesday morning, but sometimes, the reviewer’s life means sacrificing sleep so that you can get to the Lyric Hammersmith in time for a 09:30 performance of  Father Christmas . Based on the 1973 book written and drawn by Raymond Briggs,  Father Christmas  tells the story of the man himself from the moment he is dragged out of his sleep on the morning of the 24th December until he finally gets back into bed on the evening of the 25th. Now, this is not the jolly Santa shown in so many adverts. Oh no,  Father Christmas  is an old man who is, well let’s not beat about the bush, a bit of a curmudgeon. He lives in a fairly ordinary house with his cat, dog and two reindeer and you get the feeling he is less enthusiastic about Christmas Eve than the majority of the world. Still, he is nothing if not a professional, and deep down he does still love his job, and so he dons...

Front Adrienne Warren (Tina Turner), back Francesca Jackson (Rhonda Graam). Photo by Manuel Harlan On November 26, 1939, Anna Mae Bullock was born at Poindexter Farm on Highway 180 in the small town of Nutbush, in Haywood County, Tennessee. For those that don’t recognise the name, my advice is to get yourselves down to the Aldwych Theatre where the story of the girl who grew to be a megastar is being told in the world premiere of  Tina . Tina  is the story of how young Anna Mae (Claudia Elie/Serena Mukuna/Reya-Nyomi Brown), abandoned by her mother, Zelma (Madeline Appiah) and is brought up by her maternal grandmother GG (Lorna Gayle). As Anna Mae (Adrienne Warren) gets older, GG realises it is time for her to leave Nutbush and head for the lights of St Louis to be reunited with her mother and sister Alline (Aisha Jawando). There, Anna Mae went to the Club Manhattan and met a singer/songwriter/bandleader by the name of Ike Turner (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) who signs her ...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/196211/review-the-tempest-brockley-jack-studio-theatre/ The Tempest at Brockley Jack Studio Theatre Cole Porter famously wrote “ Brush up your Shakespeare, Start quoting him now, Brush up your Shakespeare, And the women you will wow ” nice words but for the Controlled Chaos Theatre Company fairly pointless as they present their all-female version of William Shakespeare’s  The Tempest  at the Brockley Jack. I’m sure you know the basics of the story. Prospero (Jo Bartlett), rightful Duke of Milan, and his daughter, Miranda (Michelle Pittoni), have been stranded for twelve years on an island after Prospero’s brother Antonio (Shereener Browne) – aided by Alonso, the King of Naples (Orla Sanders) – deposed him and set him adrift. Gonzalo (Alma Reising), Prospero’s friend and the King’s counselor, had secretly supplied their boat with the essentials of life, including some of Prospero’s prize books. On the island, Prospero has caused his ...