Tezza's Theatre Place

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...

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...

http://www.lastminutetheatretickets.com/londonwestend/review-school-of-rock-the-musical/ Take a 2003 musical comedy film, add the writing of Julian Fellowes, music by  Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Glenn Slater and a talented bunch of kids and what do you get? That’s right, you  School of Rock The Musical , which has just opened at the New London Theatre. Opening with a performance from rock band ‘No Vacancy’ of their latest song the show introduces Dewey Finn (David Flynn) a man that has never grown up, nor given up the dream of being a rock star. Unfortunately, he isn’t and his attempts to push himself to the front of the group leads to him being sacked. Returning home to the apartment he shares – well has a room he doesn’t pay for – with best friend, former rocker and now substitute teacher Ned Schneebly (Oliver Jackson), Dewey is confronted by Ned’s disapproving girlfriend Patty (Preeya Kalidas) who tells him to pay up or ship out. Later that day, Dewey takes...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/150674/mums-the-word-the-hen-and-chickens-theatre/ I never went to a boarding school. Age eleven I was down the local comprehensive five days a week and returning to my loving home for dinner in the evening. However, those that did go through the public school system often say it had a profound effect on their lives and they made relationships that lasted forever. I used the word relationships there deliberately for, as can be seen in Robert Hughes’ new play  Mum’s the Word  at the Hen and Chickens Theatre, you can’t always call these coming together of people friendship. The ‘Wine and Dandy’ bar in Soho and Jess (Danielle Williams) is sat at a table by herself, a waiter approaches and kisses her. Even in Soho, this overly familiar type of behaviour would normally be considered odd, but the waiter is in fact, Jess’s boyfriend Aidan (Lewis Clarke). Tonight though Aiden is just a waiter as Jess is meeting some friends – well when I say fr...