Tezza's Theatre Place

Fight Night. VAULT Festival. Photo Mark Senior. (Pete Grimwood and Edward Linard). Now here’s a conundrum. I love going to The Vaults Festival and I really enjoy immersive theatre. However, even my best friends wouldn’t call me sporty in any way and I am really not all that keen on boxing – two men fight in a ring and get paid millions, two men fight in the street and end up in the cells. So you can imagine that when I was asked to go to the Vaults and see an immersive production set around a boxing match I was in two minds as to what to do. However, FOMO being the mother of all necessity, along I went to see Exit Productions latest production  Fight Night . The production is set in the world of boxing where a new promoter has set up a match between an old boxing pro, Ian “Bam Bam” Bradshaw and an up and coming usurper to the crown, Joe Williams. However,  Fight Night  is so much more than a boxing match and over the roughly 90 minutes run time, the audience get ...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/191652/thark-drayton-arms-theatre-review/ Thark I’m a great fan of the 1920s. OK, I’m not old enough to remember them but thanks to books like the Jeeves and Wooster series, I do feel that I know the era pretty well. I’m also a fan of farce as a theatrical genre and a combination of both seemed too good to miss. So off I toottled to the Drayton Arms to see a performance of Ben Travers’ quintessentially English farce  Thark. At the home of Sir Hector Benbow (Mathijs Swarte) his butler Hook (Daniel Casper) has just received some news. He has become a father – admittedly of a girl but he can cope with that. As he tries to head off to go and see his wife and child, he gives instructions to Warner (Sophia Lorenti) the maid as to what to do when a female visitor arrives. Sir Hector is out at the races with his nephew Ronny (Robin Blell) while his wife Lady Benbow (Charlotte Vassell) is away, so it is up to the servants to ensure that Sir Hector’s...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/191176/jack-and-the-beanstalk-new-wimbledon-theatre-review/ Liam Tamne and Charlotte Gooch – Photo credit Craig Sugden It’s December and for most theatres, that means one thing. For the next six weeks or so, they will be opening their doors twice a day, six days a week to let hordes of happy children – along with some adults – come and experience the magic of live theatre. Yes, its pantomime season and I was lucky enough to get a trip to the New Wimbledon Theatre for the opening of their festive offering  Jack and the Beanstalk . The basic story is that Giant Blunderbore is causing havoc by raising the rent in a small village and driving the villagers into poverty. Life is so bad that Dame Trott (Clive Rowe) is going to have to sell her cow to try and make ends meet and support her two sons, Jack (Liam Tamne) and Barman Al (Al Murray). Jack is upset about selling the cow but he is also distracted as he has met and fallen in love with the b...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/179829/cirkus-cirkors-limits-southbank-centres-royal-festival-hall/ Cirkus Cirkor – Credit Einar Kling-Odencrants Most shows put on at the theatre tell a story. Straight plays, musicals, ballet, opera, they all have a story to tell that needs to translate from the stage to the waiting audience sitting in the auditorium. Some shows however, are not expected to have much of a narrative to communicate and are there for pure entertainment. So, what happens when a non-story telling piece of theatre decides to do something different and give their audience something to follow as they perform? Well you can find out with a visit to  Cirkus Cirkor: Limits which I caught at the Royal Festival Hall. Limits  is conceived and directed by Tilde Björfors and sets out to imagine a world without borders and mixes music, movement and acrobatics to tell the story of movement both voluntary and especially forced. In with the physical, there are projectio...