Tezza's Theatre Place

Hannah Norris – After You 2019 credit Mark Gambino. Do you ever think back and wonder what might have been, if….? Like if I hadn’t moved to Lancashire when I was 14 or joined the RAF when I was 21, etc. I’m sure we all do it at some time or another but, do we ever look at our parents and wonder what their life might have been like if they had gone down different paths in their lives? No, me neither. But, luckily for us, Hannah Norris had just that idea and the result is her one-act play  After You  which is currently playing at Soho Theatre. Written by and starring Hannah and her real-life mother Angela Norris,  After You  starts by looking at Angela’s early life. When she was 14, Angela was in the first-ever Australian production of  The Sound of Music  at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre in 1961. But, Angela’s career went no further than that and Hannah wonders if this is because of the social conventions of the time. Mother and daughter discuss this, fr...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/187131/review-three-mothers-waterloo-east-theatre-london/ Europe is awash with migrants. War, genocide, economic conditions and deportation have caused a mass of dispossessed people to be wandering around seeking everything from a new life away from fear to just somewhere warm to rest their head. The funny thing is, anyone reading this opening will believe they already know about the migrant issue. It’s on the news all the time and has become a bit of political hot potato. But, the current situation is not the first time Europe has suffered a migrant crisis. You only need to go back seventy years to find another time when migration was a major problem for the countries of Europe. Today and the past are at the heart of Matilda Velevitch’s play  Three Mothers  at the Waterloo East Theatre. Told as three intertwining monologues,  Three Mothers  tells the story of three women separated by time and space. First, there is Khady (C...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/185309/review-the-busy-world-is-hushed-finborough-theatre/ Michael James and Mateo Oxley – Credit Scott Rylander Let’s start this review off with a quote “ I refuse to prove that I exist ,” says God, “ for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing .” If you aren’t sure where this is from I will let you know at the end of the review. However, this quote get’s nicely to the central crux of Keith Bunin’s play  The Busy World is Hushed  which is having its European premiere at the Finborough Theatre. Hannah (Kazia Pelka) is a happy Episcopalian minister and widow. She is working on a book about a recently discovered gospel which may predate the ‘famous four’ – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – and, if the dates work out correctly, may have been written just after the death of Jesus. Like many academic types, Hannah is really enthralled by her work but dreads the thought of writing it out, so she is interviewing Brandt (Mateo Oxley) f...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/181577/review-coriolanus-the-rose-playhouse/ Coriolanus at The Rose Theatre Many societies live exist under the delusion that they are run by men. Yes, the male segment may earn more and be in more positions of power than their female counterparts but, as the song says ‘behind every great man stands a woman’. Shakespeare knew this to be true and demonstrated the effect in great style in his play Coriolanus which has just returned home to Southwark’s Rose Playhouse. Ancient Rome is in uproar. The ordinary folk of the city, the plebeians, are upset that they are hungry as their rulers, the patricians, are holding back grain. Chief among those hated by the plebeians is General Caius Marcius (Chris Royle) who, being from Rome’s upper classes, makes no secret of his loathing of ‘the many headed’. The plebeians have two Tribunes, Sicinius Velutus and Junius Brutus (Jack Fairley and Sam Perry), who represent them in government, and these two figure...