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...

Up at the Palladium, you will find the ultimate in family Christmas entertainment. With a huge budget, huge sets, an orchestra and more stars than there are in the heavens. Yes, it’s panto time and  Goldilocks and the Three Bears  are safely ensconced until January. However, a stone’s throw from the LP, is another panto. It’s smaller, has fewer star names and, as they themselves say, little budget. But going by my visit to the Karma Sanctum Hotel, to see  Jack and His Giant Bigstalk , I think I know which of the two pantos I prefer. In the village of Doggin On the Hill, Dame Trot (Edward Denny) lives with her son Jack (Alex Guersman). Jack is the epitome of a pantomime hero – handsome but a trifle dim. Not the brightest of individuals, he makes up for it by being a loving son to Dame Trot and a wonderful best friend to Daisy the cow (Ben Felton/Alex Reid). He is also a young man who has noticed stirrings in parts of his body and a fluttering in his heart, especially w...

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...

Open Clasp Snake Coercive controlling domestic abuse may not sound like a good subject to turn into an entertainment for the masses. When the play is based on real-life stories from women that have suffered and survived such abuse, then it starts to sound even less like something I would want to see. However, being nothing if not professional, I went along to the Soho Theatre to see Open Clasp’s production  Rattle Snake . In a cube-shaped stage, two women sit at a dinner table facing each other. They don’t speak to each other but they are interacting by carrying out a set of what looks like ritual moves with the glasses on the table. As they get faster, one of the women makes a mistake and the two freeze, looking around in fear, waiting for something or someone to react to the mistake. When nothing happens, the two relax slightly, then start again. After a while, they stand and talk to the audience. We learn that they are Suzy (Christina Berriman Dawson) and Jen (Eilidh Talman...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/196428/review-the-york-realist-donmar-warehouse/# Lesley Nicol (Mother) and Ben Batt (George) in The York Realist at the Donmar Warehouse, directed by Robert Hastie. Photo by Johan Persson The kitchen is the heart of the home. It is the place where we receive our sustenance and is the only room that everyone in a house is likely to visit and meet other members of the household. This is particularly true in a small property such as a cottage on a farm, the setting for Peter Gill’s 2001 play  The York Realist  which has been revived at the Donmar Warehouse. Yorkshire farm labourer George (Ben Batt) lives in a tied cottage with his elderly Chapel going mother (Lesley Nicol) and his life pretty much revolves around the farming calendar. The two of them roll along nicely together. George’s mother is getting on in years and is not as fit as she once was, but she always ensures he has a hot meal waiting and a clean shirt ironed. There is only...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/191040/review-expat-underground-tristan-bates-theatre/ Political plays are all the rage at the moment and taking centre stage in the narrative is the effects of Brexit – even the Archers talk about it every so often. A lot of these plays irritate me as they are based on supposition as to what will happen once the hard/soft/slightly flabby at the edges Brexit goes through – something that nobody knows right now. However, for a really good one-act play about the life – past, present & possibly future – of a European migrant, then I can heartily recommend Cecilia Gragnani & Jvan Sica’s  Expat Underground  which I saw at the Tristan Bates Theatre. This charming one-person (well sort of, as I will explain in a moment) production is the story of Cecilia, a young girl who decides to leave her Italian village and, after a sojourn in Paris, decides to move to London to seek her proverbial fortune. We follow her adventures from the mome...

https://www.carnstheatrepassion.com/review-loved-lucy/ ★★★★★ Review By Terry Eastham One of the most difficult things for an actor to be asked to do is to play an icon, whether living or dead. No matter how the actor may be able to portray every facet of the individual there will always be some who say it’s not right and it will be impossible to please everyone in their portrayal. However, at the Arts Theatre, you will find an actor who is her subject to the tee as Lee Tannen’s lovely two-hander  I Loved Lucy  returns to London. Photos by Alessia Chinazzo Background Based on Lee’s book of the same name, the story follows the relationship of Lee (Matthew Scott) and his idol Lucille Ball (Sandra Dickinson) in the last ten years of Lucy’s life. She may no longer have been a massive film and television star but Lucy was still a Hollywood star and Lee had a wonderfully close relationship with her. Lucy is everything Lee hoped she would be. Warm, friendly, feisty an...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/177779/review-of-touch-by-vicky-jones-at-soho-theatre/ Touch – Edward Bluemel – Amy Morgan – photo credit Helen Maybanks Why do people flock to the metropolis? After all, everyone has known since the days of Dick Whittington, that the streets aren’t paved with gold and lots of people I meet, that have moved to London, simply complain and say how wonderful their home town was. But still they come, and one such newcomer to the bright lights is the heroine of Vicky Jones’ play  Touch at Soho Theatre. Swansea girl Dee (Amy Morgan) is doing okay for herself. She has come to London with a job – well maternity cover in a marketing company – and somewhere to live – an estate agent would say a compact and bijou studio apartment, normal people would call it a really tiny bedsit. Having split up with her long-term boyfriend Sam (Matthew Aubrey), Dee is ready to jump into London Life. Through the magic of Tinder© she meets Eddie (James Marlowe), a...

https://www.lastminutetheatretickets.com/londonwestend/roller-diner-soho-theatre-review/ Roller Diner – photo credit Helen Maybanks Sometimes we get into a rut. This is especially true in a work environment where doing things a certain way because they always have been done that way is a common method of operating. And then someone new arrives in the office and starts questioning things, maybe offering alternative ways of doing the same thing to increase efficiency or sales. That’s what is about to occur in  Roller Diner , the professional debut of Birmingham writer Stephen Jackson and the winner of Soho Theatre’s prestigious Verity Bargate Award for new writing. The Roller Diner of the title is in Birmingham and owned by Eddie Costello (Joe Dixon). It is a bit run down – well let’s be honest, it’s a dive – and Eddie really doesn’t seem to be that interested in it. He leaves the day to day running of the diner to his daughter Chantel (Lucie Shorthouse) who runs the place with...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/170523/review-shit-faced-shakespeare-much-ado-about-nothing/ Shit-faced Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing Alcohol and the theatre have always gone together. Normally, its some member of the audience having one too many pre-show drinks then being a nuisance during the show – or even worse, falling asleep and snoring sat next to you. However, it is always assumed that though a first night and a last night cast party may get a bit raucous, the actors themselves tend to be sober for the duration of the performance. Now imagine a scenario where a group of highly trained actors sit around before curtain up and deliberately get one of their number drunk, then send them out to perform one of The Bard’s Classics. Welcome to Shit-faced Shakespeare’s presentation of  Much Ado About Nothing  at the Leicester Square Theatre. Now, normally in a review, I would write an opening paragraph like the one above then this paragraph would give you a synop...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/170188/review-expensive-shit-soho-theatre/ Expensive Shit 2017 Photo credit Eoin Carey Ever look at the title of a show and wonder not only what it means but also why those particular words had been chosen? For example, ‘Urinetown’ is such a bad title for a musical that it’s even referred to in the opening number. Another show with an intriguing title is Adura Onashile’s  Expensive Shit  which has just opened at the Soho Theatre. The play tells the story of Tolu (Kiza Deen) and revolves around two toilets. The first is in ‘The Shrine’ nightclub, Lagos 1974 and the second is an unnamed club in Glasgow in 2013. In Lagos, Tolu and her female friends (Veronica Lewis, Jamie Marie Leary, and Maria Yarjah) practice their dancing, then they practice again. Tolu is relentless in getting them to practice dancing to Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat music. The reason for all this practicing? Like many of their contemporaries, the girls want to get noticed a...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/169787/lucy-mccormick-triple-threat-soho-theatre-review/ According to the Collins English Dictionary, the word ‘gobsmacked’ means astounded and astonished. Personally I think this is too simplistic as we all know when we’ve been gobsmacked don’t we? Well, if you’re not too sure what it means then I would suggest you get yourself along to the Soho Theatre to see  Lucy McCormick: Triple Threat  and roughly an hour after the show starts, you will be 100% certain that you were gobsmacked. Lucy and her backing team present a show that is, in effect, the New Testament, or at least the story of Jesus. Playing all the major roles herself, Lucy takes the story of the Son of God from conception, through birth, adoration, betrayal, crucifixion and finally to ascension. How she does this, I can’t tell you for two very good reasons. Firstly,  Lucy McCormick: Triple Threat  is definitely one of those shows that needs to be seen to be belie...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/169539/the-chemsex-monologues-the-kings-head-theatre-review/ The Chemsex Monologues at the King’s Head Theatre. Photo by Mark Douet Some of you may have heard of an app called Grindr. It is a social app for gay men that enables them to chat and arrange to meet up. Okay, it may be a bit more than that but once again I must remember my mother reads these things. Anyway, if I was to download it and switch it on now, two things would become apparent very quickly. The first is that a lot of people take really bad photographs which seem to cut off their heads and the second is that the world is divided into those that say ‘chems OK’ and those that say ‘No Chems’. Being firmly on the ‘No Chems’ side, it is interesting to delve, if only briefly, on the other. Such an opportunity is available as Patrick Cash’s play  The Chemsex Monologues  makes a welcome return to the King’s Head Theatre in Islington. As the title suggests,  The Chemsex M...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/158767/review-glockenspiel-tristan-bates-theatre/ Military life isn’t for everyone. Even in peacetime, it puts a lot of strain on not only the serviceman or woman but also their family and friends. In a time of conflict, that strain gets even more intense. This gets worse if the service man/woman doesn’t fully believe in the cause and justness of the action they are being ordered to take. However, possibly the most difficult part of military life is when it ends. After a lifetime of service, adjusting to civilian life can be traumatic, to say the least. All of these themes and more are examined in Steven Dykes  Glockenspiel  at Soho’s Tristan Bates Theatre. Glockenspiel tells the story of the funerals of three current and former members of the American armed forces. Whilst none of the deceased died on active service, they are all entitled to and receive a military funeral. At each, the Defence Department has supplied an Honour Gua...