Tezza's Theatre Place

https://www.lastminutetheatretickets.com/londonwestend/carmen-1808-union-theatre-london-review/ Carmen – Credit Scott Rylander Ah, the classics. As everyone knows there are two types of performances that involve people singing on stage. There is opera – grand stories, big voices, elitist and not for the plebs – and there is musical theatre – shallow plots, jazz hands, available to the Saturday night, ‘gotta catch a show crowd’. And as everyone really knows, the last sentence is rubbish. Opera can be accessible and musical theatre can be amazingly deep in plot and composition. And, of course the two genres can be mixed which is precisely what Phil Willmott has done with  Carmen 1808  at the Union Theatre. Spain in 1808 is under the control of Napoleon Bonaparte and his troops. Our narrator, the painter Francisco Goya (Alexander Barria) sets the scene. The Spanish nobility have accepted France’s rule and the French army – along with their new comrades in the Span...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/195454/review-arnika-theatre-voliere-bridewell-theatre/ Arnika – Image by Tom Crooke/Bobbin Productions In these days of Brexit and Trump, knowing which country a person is from seems to be more and more relevant than before, so where are you from? I’m British, I have a friend who is Australian, another is American and so on. Simple, I have my identity and so do you. Now imagine that you were from an area of the Europe where your nationality has not just changed hands once but since 450 BC, has actually switched ‘locations’ seventeen times, and since 1900 has been seen a change of owner four times. That is the fate of Alsace, the location for Mick Wood’s new play  Arnika , part of Théâtre Volière’s Marchland festival at the Bridewell Theatre. 1951 and in a village in a forest in the Vosges mountains of Alsace, there is tension in the air. The Mayor of the town, and local hotelier – Josef Seltz (Anthony Orme) – is getting ready for an unwelc...