Tezza's Theatre Place

Urinetown, The Musical There are some words that just go together. For example, ham and eggs, fish and chips, gin and tonic, etc and if you are a writer of theatrical pieces, then two words that have to go together are dystopian and future. I can’t think of a single show I’ve seen where the future looks bright. Still, it makes for good theatre and one of my favourite dystopian future shows is currently being put on by one of my favourite production companies. Welcome then to the SEDOS production of  Urinetown: The Musical  at the Bridewell Theatre. In a dystopian future, water shortages have become so bad that in a bid to conserve the limited supply, all private toilets are forbidden by law and if you need to spend a penny, then you need to have a penny (or more) to give to the custodian of the official toilets run by UGC. The laws are rigorously enforced by the police, personified in Officer Lockstock (Luke Leahy) and his sidekick Officer Barrel (Stephen Kellett) who ensu...

Chutney – © Rah Petherbridge Photography A few years ago, my dad and I had a long and heated discussion about attraction and what attracts one person to another. And when you look around at couples you know or see, I’m sure at some time you’ve thought to yourself ‘why are those two together?’ Attraction can be based on many things. Physical appearance, background, interests, religion, all of these can be factors. Sometimes though, as in the case of the protagonists of  Chutney  at the Bunker Theatre, the real reason they were attracted to each other doesn’t become fully apparent until long after the relationship has begun. University sweethearts Claire (Isabel Della-Porta) and Gregg (Will Adolphy) have been together for 6 years. They are the classic DINK, settled into their nice middle-class life. Gregg is a teacher and Claire has some high powered job with a long, long title in an agency. They are the ultimate example of an up and coming power couple. What more could...

Blueberry Toast prod images. Adrianna Bertola and Matt Barkley. Credit Helen Maybanks & Soho Theatre. Back in the day, many toys were operated by a clockwork mechanism, You would wind the key, feeling the spring inside tighten up until it would go no more, then push a button, the spring was released and the toy would charge off doing whatever it was supposed to do. I mention this because the idea of winding a mechanism until it goes off is at the heart of Mary Laws’ play Blueberry Toast which is receiving its European premiere at the Soho Theatre. On a normal Sunday morning, poetry teacher Walt (Gareth David-Lloyd) is marking texts in the kitchen of his lovely suburban home. His doting wife Barb (Gala Gordon) has asked him what he would like for breakfast and, having got his order, has started to make him blueberry toast. Whilst breakfast is beig prepared, the couple’s children, the whimsically named Jack (Matt Barkley) and Jill (Adrianna Bertola), are working on a four-act pl...

Sweeney Todd: Production photo by Stephen Russell. Sometimes we all want a piece of fiction to be true. Let’s be honest for years, politicians have been getting the two mixed up for years. However, there are stories, which seem to have entered folklore to the point where it is difficult to know if they are real or just the product of an author’s imagination. Once such tale is  Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street , which started life as a Penny Dreadful back in 1846 and has been re-written, turned into a play, a musical and a film. Various productions of the musical have been put on both here and over the pond, and I recently caught the latest, from Geoids Musical Theatre at the Stockwell Playhouse. It’s 1846 and two men are returning to London after an absence of some time. One is a sailor by the name of Anthony Hope (Richard Upton) and the other is a man he rescued from the sea. A mysterious and very intense man by the name of Sweeney Todd (Thomas Isherwood) who ha...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/198816/review-philip-ridleys-vincent-river-park-theatre/ Vincent River – Thomas Mahy (Davey) Louise Jameson (Anita) Photo by David Monteith Hodge Losing a son or daughter must be devastating for any parent, but when that loss is the result of murder and nobody has been brought to justice then the pain and need for answers must be almost unbearable. This is the starting point for Philip Ridley’s one-act play  Vincent River currently in residence at the Park Theatre. Anita (Louise Jameson) has recently moved into a flat in Dagenham. The flat is a bit of a tip, and she hasn’t really done much about unpacking, but she is glad to be away from her old estate. Anita has moved because of the sniping and gossip following the murder of her son, Vincent, in a surprising and unlikely location. She is pleased to be away from everyone and is looking forward to starting a new life with no more prying eyes and wagging tongues. However, today she is not alo...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/197527/review-father-of-lies-vault-festival/ Sasha Roberts and Tom Worsley in Father of Lies One of the amazing things about the Vault Festival – currently in full swing under Waterloo Station – is the sheer variety of productions that can be seen. I’ve watched a feminist show using the magic of Madonna’s music to get the point across, a farce based around the Holocaust, not to mention a dodgy one-act play about a bus stop and a cello. However, my latest venture to the festival was my first horror show as I went into the Cavern to see Bête Noire Productions’  Father of Lies . Father of Lies  is written and performed by Sasha Roberts and Tom Worsley, two very amiable young men with a taste for the macabre. Their production is based on a true story of a murder, or maybe a double murder, that took place in Würzburg, in what was then West Germany in 1973. It is part presentation and part reenactment as the two guys take the audience t...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/193202/edward-ii-review-greenwich-theatre-london/ Lazarus Theatre’s Edward II 2017 – Photo by Adam Trigg “ Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely ” or so the saying goes. But, what is power in this context? For example, an absolute monarch appears to have total power over their domain but, in reality, this is an illusion and their hold on the throne and all that goes with it is very fragile and subject to the will of many others. Lazarus Theatre Company demonstrates this superbly in their new production of Marlowe’s  Edward II  at the Greenwich Theatre. Edward I is dead and his fourth son inherits the throne and assumes the title of Edward II (Timothy Blore). Edward is young, only 23 at the time of his accession, and his youth shows when, despite all the warnings of his court, Edward invites his favourite minion Piers Gaveston (Oseloka Obi) to return to England and join his court. Although not a nobleman by bir...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/192760/review-this-story-of-yours-white-bear-theatre/ David Sayers as Baxter and Brian Merry as Johnson in ‘This Story of Yours’ – © Lesley Cook Headshots Often, when I go and see a show, part of the fun is trying to work out the ending as the story progresses. Sometimes though, the audience knows exactly what is going to happen at the end. For example in John Hopkins’  This Story of Yours  currently at the White Bear Theatre. The end is directly referred to throughout. In a dark sitting room, Detective Sergeant Johnson (Brian Merry) is sitting alone knocking back the whisky. In fact, he is drowning in it and is not so much three sheets to the wind as totally hammered. He attempts to put a record on the record player but fails to coordinate and ends up making so much noise that he wakes his wife, Maureen (Emma Reade-Davies) who tentatively comes in to find out what has upset her husband. Johnson explains that earlier that evening he ...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/187702/review-a-murder-is-announced-the-churchill-theatre-bromley/ Louise Jameson as Miss Marple Apart from my mother, the only other woman with whom I’ve had a lifelong relationship is Dame Agatha Christie.  Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy & Tuppence , I’ve read them all. I’ve seen the movies and TV shows and been to see The Mousetrap twice, so I was very excited to head to the Churchill Theatre Bromley when the touring version of  A Murder is Announced  dropped in. Friday morning at Little Paddocks, Chipping Gleghorn meant one thing to Dora Bunner (Sarah Thomas) and that was the arrival of the local paper which she would pour over learning everything that was important in the village. This particular Friday was no different except that in the small ads there was a very strange announcement “ A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks, at 6:30 p.m. Friends accept this, the only in...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/179160/review-the-wasp-jermyn-street-theatre/ Lisa Gorgin and Selina Giles in The Wasp – Photographer Andreas Grieger I suppose I was very lucky at school. Although being short, wearing glasses and having ‘FA Cup’ ears, I don’t remember ever being bullied about theses things. Though I did get my ears fixed and once ‘lost’ a pair of NHS glasses as I hated them, so maybe things did get said after all. The point is, that whatever may have happened it was obviously pretty mild and so I’ve forgotten about it. I’m one of the lucky ones. For some people school is a place they go to to be tortured either mentally, verbally or physically. For them, school doesn’t end when they hit 16 and leave. For them, these events may live in their mind for years to come, and this is the premise behind Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s play  The Wasp  at the Jermyn Street Theatre. Outside a nondescript coffee shop, two women sit and drink tea. Heather (Selina Giles) is...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/172953/review-whitechapel-suspects-lunatics-and-a-leather-apron/ The year is 1888 and the place is East London. As summer comes to an end the area is rocked by the horrific murders of two ‘working’ girls. The murders are bizarre and violent and the locals are running scared. Welcome then to  Whitechapel: Suspects, Lunatics and a Leather Apron  an immersive trip into this world. The experience starts before your actual trip back in time. After booking, the audience members receive various emails giving them information about the murders and the experience they will be going through. Interestingly, among the emails is a disclaimer – something I’ve never had to complete for an immersive production before – which needs to be signed before the adventure begins. At the appointed time, you arrive in a nondescript road in London’s East End standing by a blue door and waiting for kick-off. A friendly local confirms your name – and that you have...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/167236/the-wild-party-the-other-palace-review/ Ever thrown or been to a party where things have got a little out of hand? Yep, me too. In fact, there was a certain party where……. Well, I can’t say any more because my mother sometimes reads these reviews. However, no matter what has happened at your party, it pales into insignificance compared to the shenanigans at Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe’s The Wild Party which has re-launched The Other Palace (formerly the St James Theatre) in Victoria. 1920s New York and Vaudeville performer Queenie (Frances Ruffelle) is getting bored with her relationship with fellow performer Burrs (John Owen-Jones). In an effort to calm her after one particularly nasty fight threatens to get out of hand, Burrs suggests they throw a party and invite all their old friends. This is destined to be some party and Queenie is planning to really enjoy herself and...

http://www.lastminutetheatretickets.com/londonwestend/crime-and-punishment-brockley-jack-studio-theatre-review/ When you consider the vast wealth of literature available in the world, you sometimes have to wonder why playwrights decide that certain books should be turned into a piece of theatrical entertainment. For example, imagine taking a novel with around twenty-two listed characters and which the author originally divided into six distinct parts with an epilogue and then distilling all of this down to a ninety-minute one-act play three actors. Personally, I would have given up within the first five minutes. However, Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus have more fortitude than me and so, they gave the treatment to Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1866 novel  Crime and Punishment  and the result of their work can be seen at Brockley’s famous Jack Studio Theatre The play starts with two men in an office. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, (Christopher Tester) is a young man who, going ...