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...

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...

Remember when you were a child? Every year, along with all the other trials and tribulations of growing up and going to school, and extra layer of intensity would be added with the annual visit of your parents to your school to learn all about you. Fortunately, I was pretty much a model pupil and so my teachers always said positive things about me. Even so, I would always get worried when it was time for the folks to pop in and have a chat about me without me being there. One thing I never thought about though, was the effect of these visits on my mum and dad, something that has been partially rectified with the European premiere of Bathsheba Doran’s play  Parents’ Evening  at the Jermyn Street Theatre. In a nice bedroom, a nice middle-class couple are discussing their ten-year-old daughter, Jessica. The mother (Amy Marston) is sitting on the bed talking whilst reading papers, whilst the father (Peter Hamilton Dyer) is pacing the room, trying to discuss their child with h...

Lovebites Australia has given this country many things that we have taken to our heart – Skippy and Kylie to name but two. And now, they have sent us another export to keep us entertained in the shape of Theatretripp Productions who have brought their critically acclaimed show  Lovebites  to the White Bear Theatre. Lovebites is a combination musical and revue where the four performers (Charlie Bowyer, Alasdair Melrose, Ariane Sallis and Jessica Tripp) under Musical Director Tim Shaw, tell seven different stories of love and romance. In the first half, the show demonstrates how love can appear, not only when least expected. but in the oddest of places. So there are stories about Facebook, film stars, book clubs, retail, plumbing, a wedding and wishful thinking. Each story is told by its own song – composed in many various styles by Peter Rutherford and James Millar – and sung either as a solo, duo, trio or quartet by the cast. In the second half of the show, we get to revis...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/186056/review-skin-tight-the-hope-theatre/ Tom (Philippe Edwards) and Elizabeth (Louise Hoare) in Skin Tight Over the course of a lifetime together, a married couple must go through an awful lot. Initial romance, wooing each other, living together, marriage, children, growing old together and finally death. Could you summarise a life spent as part of a couple in only one hour? I know I couldn’t, but luckily Southern Magpie Theatre have brought Gary Henderson’s play  Skin Tight  to the Hope Theatre in Islington to do the job for me. Tom (Philippe Edwards) and Elizabeth (Louise Hoare) have been together for a long time. Since meeting as children in their small New Zealand town, the two of them have had a life together of ups and downs. Together they have faced life and all it could throw at them. They’ve loved, each other, fought each other, argued, made up and generally been a normal married couple. Tom went to war, while Elizabeth stay...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/180877/review-outlaws-to-in-laws-kings-head-theatre/ Outlaws to In-Laws 70 years is, according the bible, the amount of time that a person has on earth – Psalm 90, verse 10: “ The days of our years are three score and ten. ” Of course, in reality, people often live much longer. But, over the course of seven decades its amazing how much the world in which we live can change and this is the central message of  Outlaws to In-Laws  which is part of the centrepiece of the King’s Head Theatre’s Queer Festival 17. Outlaws to In-Laws  is not a single play but is an evening comprising of seven plays by individual authors, each taking place in a separate decade between the 1950s and 2010s. The first,  Happy and Glorious  by Philip Meeks take place on the day of the Queen’s coronation in 1953. In a ‘gentleman’s club’ overlooking Westminster Abbey, Edward (Alex Marlow) and Peter (Elliot Balchin) are welcoming a new member in the shap...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/172052/review-half-moon-theatres-happily-ever-after/ Happily Ever After My fondness for children is well known so when the call came out for a volunteer to review ‘a delightful fairytale tail with a twist’ you can imagine mine was not the first hand raised. However, being free at the time it was on, I took myself out to Tower Hamlets and the Half Moon Theatre to see  Happily Ever After . The play starts as the audience gets settled – youngest kids on the cushions at the front, adults on the seats – with two Paiges gently cleaning the checkerboard floor of the palace, moving gently, nicely co-ordinated with Patrick Dineen’s music. Once the performance proper starts, the Paiges begin filling the walls of the palace with portraits of previous kings and queens who had ruled the country. Then, with a fanfare, we get to meet The Queen (Bruno Mendes) herself. She does all the Queenly things, waving, smiling and pretending to take an interest in th...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/171584/review-when-harry-met-barry-above-the-stag-theatre/ There are many things that theatre can do for its audience. Sometimes, it will educate, sometimes raise awareness or start a conversation and sometimes it will simply provide a very entertaining distraction from the world outside. The latest example of the latter type of show is  When Harry Met Barry  which has just opened at the Above the Stag Theatre in Vauxhall. TV celebrity chef Harry (Brandon Gale) is fed up with ‘love’. Although he is tall, handsome and runs a successful Soho restaurant, he basically only meets men who seem to think a relationship means they stay overnight and nothing needs go deeper than that. And then, one day, while sitting in a coffee shop minding his own business, Harry meets flamboyant design student and scene queen Spencer (Austin Garrett). The two of them seem to hit it off immediately and after a couple of coffees, Harry is not alone anymore. Over...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/164161/review-promises-promises-southwark-playhouse/ Neil Simon writes the book, Hal David writes the lyrics and Burt Bacharach writes the music. Put all this together and what do you get? A Tony award-winning musical that goes by the name of  Promises, Promises  that has returned to London and taken up residence at the Southwark Playhouse after an absence of nearly 50 years. Chuck Baxter (Gabriel Vick) is a junior accountant in a large insurance company. Although a lowly, often overlooked individual, Chuck has aspirations to climb the ladder to executive level. Unfortunately, his life isn’t living up to his dreams until one day, one of the executives (exec) finds out that Chuck rents a studio bachelor pad on West 67th Street, and asks to borrow it, so he can take his lady friend there for a spot of ‘afternoon delight’. Chuck, in his eagerness to ingratiate himself with the higher ups, agrees and soon news of the local bolt-hole spre...