Tezza's Theatre Place

Ghost Stories – Caretaker As the nights draw in, thoughts turn to the autumn and winter celebrations. Right now, that means Halloween and for those of you that like a bit of a fright in your life, I can offer you no better play that  Ghost Stories  at the Ambassadors Theatre. This is a show where, rather like  The Mousetrap  next door, they ask the audience to keep the secrets and I can fully understand why. As plays go, whilst not being truly immersive,  Ghost Stories  is a production that needs to be experienced. Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman have written a fascinating set of stories. The tales are linked together by parapsychologist Professor Phillip Goodman (Simon Lipkin) who has recorded each event and provides his own, more down to earth, ideas of what happened to elderly night watchman Tony (Garry Cooper), wayward teenager Simon (Preston Nyman) and city financier Mike (Richard Sutton). And there is nothing to fault in this production. I both love ...

Andy Nyman (Tevye), credit Johan Persson. The Book of Exodus says that after crossing the Red Sea, Moses led the Hebrews into the Sinai, where they spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness. Fortunately for the inhabitants of a small Russian village at the turn of the last century, all they had to do was move across the river as they took the highly successful Menier Chocolate Factory production of  Fiddler on the Roof  across the Thames to the Playhouse Theatre. The story centres around Tevye (Andy Nyman) a poor Jewish milkman, his wife Golde (Judy Kuhn) and their five daughters, Tzeitel (Molly Osborne), Hodel (Harriet Bunton), Chava (Nicola Brown), Shprintze (Elena Cervesi/Lia Cohen/Shoshana Ezequiel/Valentina Theodoulo) and finally Beilke (Sofia Bennett/Lottie Casserley/Talia Etherington/Isabella Foat). Like all of the Jewish inhabitants of Anatevka, the family lives an uneasy life by the side of the Christian Russians who are the dominant people in the village. Still...

It’s Christmas and Leicester Square has really gone to town. The Spiegeltent has been moved from the South Bank and taken up residence in the winter wonderland that the square has become. Filling the tent with their amazing brand of burlesque, drag and circus are some boys visiting from down under. Yes, once more  Briefs: Close Encounters  is back and ready to bring a spot of Christmas cheer to an appreciative audience. For the uninitiated, let me try and explain the unexplainable. Hosted by the glamorous Shivannah (Fez Fa’Anana) a time traveller from a much better future, who has come back in time with her gorgeous boys (Captain Kidd, Dale Woodbridge-Brown, Thomas Worrell, Louis Biggs, and Harry Clayton-Wright) to show current day audiences how wonderful the future is going to be. This is done with a fantastic and enjoyable mixture of the bizarre and the fascinating. Aerial gymnastics take pride of place with interpretive dance, shameless flirting and the most wonderful ...

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...

Michael Ball Photography BrinkhoffMögenburg It’s always nice when two of your favourite things come together – for example, musical theatre and ABBA. So when I was asked if I wanted to go and see the new version of Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice’s musical  Chess  at the Coliseum. I leapt at the chance. Set during the height of the cold war,  Chess  is the story of two Chess Grandmasters – Frederick Trumper (Tim Howar) from the USA and Russian Anatoly Sergievsky (Michael Ball) – battling it out to be world champions under the watchful eye of The Arbiter (Cedric Neal). Both men are totally different. Trumper is loud, brash, arrogant and often ends up arguing with his ‘second’ Florence (Cassidy Janson). On the other hand, Anatoly is a family man, married to Svetlana (Alexandra Burke) and, by all appearances, a dedicated ambassador of the Soviet Union, particularly under the watchful eye of his state-appointed ‘second’ Ivan Molokov (Philip Browne). As t...

l-r Holly Sumpton, Matt Hunt, Samuel Fogell. Photo credit Robert Workman Between 1950 and 1966 actor-manager Brian Rix ran a series of plays in the West End. Because of their location and the type of play they were, they soon became known as the ‘Whitehall Farces’. Now, since those days, the Whitehall Theatre has changed its name to the Trafalgar Studio and, whilst there are still many farces along the road in Whitehall, there hasn’t really been any play as successful as Brian’s five were. However, as Mark Twain once didn’t say, reports of the death of farce are grossly exaggerated and a stone’s throw from Whitehall, in the Criterion Theatre, farce is alive and extremely well in Mischief Theatre’s  The Comedy About a Bank Robbery . Set in 1958 Minneapolis City,  The Comedy About a Bank Robbery  tells the story of Mitch Ruscitti (Matt Hunt) and his accomplice Neil Cooper (Samson Ajewole) as they set out to rob the crookedest bank in the most crooked town in America of...

Front Adrienne Warren (Tina Turner), back Francesca Jackson (Rhonda Graam). Photo by Manuel Harlan On November 26, 1939, Anna Mae Bullock was born at Poindexter Farm on Highway 180 in the small town of Nutbush, in Haywood County, Tennessee. For those that don’t recognise the name, my advice is to get yourselves down to the Aldwych Theatre where the story of the girl who grew to be a megastar is being told in the world premiere of  Tina . Tina  is the story of how young Anna Mae (Claudia Elie/Serena Mukuna/Reya-Nyomi Brown), abandoned by her mother, Zelma (Madeline Appiah) and is brought up by her maternal grandmother GG (Lorna Gayle). As Anna Mae (Adrienne Warren) gets older, GG realises it is time for her to leave Nutbush and head for the lights of St Louis to be reunited with her mother and sister Alline (Aisha Jawando). There, Anna Mae went to the Club Manhattan and met a singer/songwriter/bandleader by the name of Ike Turner (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) who signs her ...

Ruthie Henshall as Mama Morton in CHICAGO – credit Tristram Kenton The Prohibition era was not necessarily the shiniest of moments in American history. Bootlegging, speakeasies and organised crime all increased during the nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages that ran from 1920 to 1933. Stil, there is one bright spot, and that is that without prohibition, we would never have had the John Kander and Fred Ebb’s wonderful  musical   Chicago  which has recently been revived at the Phoenix Theatre. Chicago  is the story of the pursuit and fragility of fame as we follow the story of two notorious women accused of murder. Vaudeville performer Velma Kelly (Josefina Gabrielle) is charged with murdering her sister and husband and Roxie Hart (Sarah Soetaert) facing trial for the murder of her lover Fred Casely (Chris Warren Drake). Roxie is terrified but the matron of the jail “Mama” Morton (Ruthie Hen...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/198074/review-brief-encounter-empire-cinema-haymarket/ Jim Sturgeon as Alec & Isabel Pollen as Laura in Brief Encounter, credit Steve Tanner Britain in 1938 was very different to how it is now. For the second time in most people’s lives, war was once again a strong possibility. Everyone dreamed of settling down into a strong stable marriage. Divorce was not something that society approved of – it was only two years previously that the King had had to abdicate for wanting to marry an American divorcee. This is a Britain where the middle classes are responsible for the moral backbone of the nation. This the Britain with  Brief Encounter  at the Empire Cinema in London’s West End. A railway station refreshment room is the unlikely setting for romance to spring. Though this is no ordinary refreshment room as it seems to be a magical place with a direct line to cupid and his bow. Presided over by Myrtle Bagot (Lucy Thackeray) a rather...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/192580/review-42nd-street-theatre-royal-drury-lane/ Everyone heading off to drama or stage school has a dream. They all want to be a star. Now some may deny it and say they would just be happy with an established career but secretly every one of them wants that five-pointed gold star on their dressing room door. The best way to achieve that stardom may be to start in the chorus then work your way up to lead actor. But, for the hero of  42nd Street  at the  Theatre Royal Drury Lane , there is a shortcut. 1933 and as the Great Depression really starts to bite, it’s announced that famous musical theatre director Julian Marsh (Tom Lister) is putting on a new show. Every hoofer in New York wants to be working on it and none is more determined than former Miss Allentown Peggy Sawyer (Clare Halse) but she’s too late to audition and everything seems to be going wrong for her. Can anything be done to rescue Peggy’s dream and get her on a B...

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.londontheatre1.com/news/174088/review-taj-express-peacock-theatre/ Taj Express – Photo by QUINTESSENCE ENTERTAINMENT Say the word “Bollywood” and what springs to mind? If you are like me, then you will have heard the word in connection with Indian film-making. So, a few facts for you. The term ‘Bollywood’ was coined in the 1970s when Indian cinema overtook America as the world’s largest film producer, producing an estimated 1,000 movies every year. This is not surprising when around 14 million Indians go the cinema every day. I could go on but, instead, I’m just going to recommend that you get a real feel for Bollywood by heading to the Peacock Theatre to see  Taj Express . Young Composer Shankar (Mikhail Sen) has a dream. He wants to compose for a Bollywood movie. Then he can be discovered and maybe one day be heralded as the new A. R. Rahman. Then one day, he gets a call from Bollywood producer Raj Pakora (Denzil Smith) who wants to hire Shankar to work on his n...