Tezza's Theatre Place

How does one measure a life and one’s progress from baby to a corpse? According to Shakespeare, “ All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. ” The seven ages of man is a concept that resonates with many people, and none more so than the aged clown in Justin Butcher’s moving play   Scaramouche Jones or The Seven White Masks . Shane Richie, Scaramouche Jones (credit Bonnie Britain). The play starts late on the 31st of December 1999 with the white-faced clown Scaramouche (Shane Richie) coming down the stairs to his dressing room after finishing his last show of the 20th Century. Scaramouche has plans to mark the millennium in a unique way, for tonight is not only his 100th birthday but also, the final day of his life. However, before shuffling off this mortal coil, Scaramouche wants to tell his story. One which starts at the end of the 19th Century an...

Scott Le Crass As the pandemic spread, and the country went into lockdown, then out, then back, then out then back, creatives everywhere had to adjust their lives and their modus operandi in order to bring theatre to the people and keep their art alive. One of those who has worked very well in this way is Director  Scott Le Crass , and I recently caught up with him for a chat about theatre in the age of COVID. TE: Welcome along Scott. I’ve just been looking back and the last time we talked was in June 2019 just after the opening of your show  Country Music  at the Omnibus Theatre. That was a successful run, wasn’t it? SLC: Yes, we ran for four weeks. I was quite keen for that to happen as a lot of fringe shows I’d done prior to that had had a maximum run of three weeks and I felt that to make it work and try to attract as much of an audience as possible it made sense to do a longer run. I sort of co-produced that production as well, and with a producing hat on as well, I ...

Falling In Love Again – Ramona Von Pusch (Marlene Dietrich) Ashton Spear (King Edward VIII) – Photo Phil Swallow. What would you give up for love? I know people that have given up their job, the family and their friends, even moving to another country all in the name of love. But few people would give up everything they have worked and been trained for since birth. However, in the early part of the twentieth century, one man did, and his story forms the backbone of Ron Elisha’s play  Falling in Love Again  at the King’s Head Theatre. It is the 10th December 1936 and King Edward VIII (Ashton Spear) is in his study contemplating his future. Tomorrow he is due to sign the Act of Abdication, renouncing his throne forever. Tonight though, he is still king and, because of this, he has an unexpected but very welcome visitor to his Fort Belvedere home. The visitor is Hollywood screen goddess Marlene Dietrich (Ramona Von Pusch) who has taken a break from filming in London and come...

My first show of 2020 sees me, once again Islington bound, to the fabled King’s Head for Unleash the Llama’s production   JEW…ish . This is the story of TJ (Edie Newman) and Max (Saul Boyer) two millennials that met at university, were members of the polyamory society and shared many experiences together. Now they have left Uni and are in the real world – Max is a not very successful stand-up comic (and part time barista) whilst TJ is a performer who expresses herself through the world of creative interpretive dance. They are still together – sort of – and probably have as many differences with each other as they do things in common. For example, Max is Jewish, and has the stereotypically large overbearing family to go with it, whilst TJ is definitely a Gentile and firmly believes that Max’s family hates her. Given their history can, and indeed should, these two try and make a go of things, or should, and indeed can, they let each other go their separate ways? What a great sta...

Games For Lovers – Photo by Geraint Lewis Back in the mists of time, relationships and love were two separate things. A match between and a boy and a girl would be arranged and terms agreed between the respective families and that was that. If the couple were lucky, they might, over the course of their life together, fall in love with each other but, if not, as long as the relationship was stable, everything was good. Nowadays, things are much more complicated. Singles bars, speed dating, apps and the various rules around dating, make finding the ‘right one’ more like work than fun. That’s the theory at the heart of Ryan Craig’s play  Games for Lovers , receiving its world premiere at The Vaults Theatre. In contemporary London, four millennials are searching for love, each using their own method to find what they seek. Radiologist Martha (Evanna Lynch) spends much of her time either pining over co-worker Dr Robert, or her best friend Logan (Calum Callaghan). For his part, PE t...

Matt Cardle as Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar at the Barbican Theatre.   Back in 1970, two young men released a rock opera concept album about a historical figure using a story freely adapted from the Bible. Little did they know that in the next 49 years, their album would have taken the world by storm, spawning award-winning Broadway and West End shows and a couple of movies. The young men were Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice, and the album was, of course,  Jesus Christ Superstar  which, following an amazing run at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre, has just opened for a strictly limited run at the Barbican. In ancient Israel, Jesus (Robert Tripolino) has caused quite a stir as he travels the country. To some, such as Simon Zealotes (Tim Newman), Jesus is going to be the catalyst that makes the nation rise up and overthrow their hated Roman oppressors, led by the Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate (Matt Cardle). To the priests, Caiaphas (Gavin Cornwall) and Anna...

June is world-wide Pride Month and here in London, we end the month with the start of London Pride week, which culminates in the annual Pride in London parade. This year, my London Pride week started with a visit to the Southwark Playhouse where  Full Disclosure Theatre  were putting on a new writing night of eight short plays revealing the naked and entertaining truths about LGBT+ life. The evening started off with  Converting The Preached To  by Niall Urquhart, directed by Louis Catliff. As we took our seats we were welcomed by our Preacher (Linus Karp) who shook hands and said hello to as many as possible. He then proceeded to introduce us to Robert (Ikky Elyas), a new member of our gay conversion therapy group who started to explain his reasons for joining much to the consternation of the Preacher and apparent delight of Dennis (Pedro de Senna) a normally quiet member of the group who blossoms under Robert’s influence. Converting The Preached To  was ...

Liv Alexander, Georgia Bradshaw and Beccy Lane, courtesy of Tom Grace For a man fast approaching his late fifties, you wouldn’t think a tale of teenage angst set in an American Roman Catholic boarding school would be that interesting. But you would be wrong, as one of my favourite shows ever is  Bare: A Pop Opera . So, I’m sure you can imagine my excitement when asked to review the latest version of this show as it opens at The Vaults Theatre. At St Cecilia’s Boarding School, the pupils are celebrating a mass on the Feast of the Epiphany. It’s a pretty normal service, worthy but dull, and as the priest (Mark Jardine) preaches, most of the teenage congregation find their attention drifting. As with all children on the brink of adulthood, there is much to occupy their minds. This is particularly true of altar boy Peter (Daniel Mack Shand) who is hiding two terrible secrets. Not only is he gay, but he is in love, and enjoying carnal relations with his roommate, and St Cecilia’s r...

Riot Act – Credit Dawson James It’s Pride Month and that means that London is full of building flying rainbow flags and the theatre scene is gayer than ever with a plethora of LGBT+ themed shows hitting the stages of the capital. Some are just OK, some are good and a small number are absolutely awesome. I was lucky enough to get to experience the latter type of show as Alexis Gregory’s  Riot Act  arrived at the Arcola Theatre, This one-man show is a verbatim portrayal of conversations Alexis has had with three gay men, whose stories are told in three separate monologues over the sixty-minute run. First, we have Michael-Anthony Nozzi, one of the few remaining people who were present at the Stonewall riots in 1969. Michael paints a graphic picture not just of the Stonewall Inn itself but also the area around Greenwich Village. This completely changed my perception of the events of June 28th. Over the course of the monologue I learnt so much about the event, its background an...

Scott Le Crass It’s been a great few days for me. Not only did I get to visit the Omnibus Theatre to review Simon Stephens’ excellent one-act play  Country Music  but I also got a chance to have a chat with the show’s Offie and Broadway World Nominated director, Scott Le Crass. I started by asking Scott to tell me a little bit about himself. SLC: I started out as an actor, trained at Arts Ed. A couple of years out I had a change of heart and just wasn’t enjoying it (the acting) anymore, so changed career and spent around 4 years teaching drama. I was directing in the college I was working at and was getting a real taste for it, and I was really enjoying it, so I started to do little projects on the side such as scratch nights, a bit of assisting here and there, and then I left my job and started to work as a freelance director. I’ve been doing this for about six years, doing lots of different stuff. So, I have a show (Elmer for Selladoor) which is a musical for kids us...