Tezza's Theatre Place

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/197527/review-father-of-lies-vault-festival/ Sasha Roberts and Tom Worsley in Father of Lies One of the amazing things about the Vault Festival – currently in full swing under Waterloo Station – is the sheer variety of productions that can be seen. I’ve watched a feminist show using the magic of Madonna’s music to get the point across, a farce based around the Holocaust, not to mention a dodgy one-act play about a bus stop and a cello. However, my latest venture to the festival was my first horror show as I went into the Cavern to see Bête Noire Productions’  Father of Lies . Father of Lies  is written and performed by Sasha Roberts and Tom Worsley, two very amiable young men with a taste for the macabre. Their production is based on a true story of a murder, or maybe a double murder, that took place in Würzburg, in what was then West Germany in 1973. It is part presentation and part reenactment as the two guys take the audience t...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/197480/review-ballistic-kings-head-theatre/ Ballistic: Jack – Photo by Tom Packer Did you know, in the first 60 days of 2018, there have been 18 gun-related incidents in American High Schools? Now that’s a lot. Every year, someone goes on the rampage in a school, a park, at their work or out of a hotel window. It’s become so commonplace now that, whilst we are shocked by the images on the news, we still watch them as part of our evening’s viewing. Afterwards, the politicians and pressure groups come out with their standard cliches and the perpetrator joins the long list of such people – normally described as a loner with a love of porn and video games – who we sort of forget, unless their name comes up in a pub quiz. The reality is we never entirely know the person themselves or their motivation for doing what they did. The same cannot be said of the vengeful lad in Alex Packer’s show  Ballistic  at the King’s Head Theatre. Him, we get t...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/197345/harold-and-maude-charing-cross-theatre-review/ Harold and Maude – Bill Milner and Sheila Hancock PHOTO by Darren Bell What exactly is the relevance of age? I’m in my fifties but have good friends ranging from twenty-five to sixty. Yes, we all have different experiences of life but it is our interests that unite us. Ultimately, age is just a number and if you find a spark with someone older or younger than yourself then you should give that a chance and see what happens. Who knows, it might even change your life. This then is the basic principle behind Colin Higgins’ play  Harold and Maude  enjoying a limited run at the Charing Cross Theatre. Set in New York in the 1970s  Harold and Maude  tells the story of two very different people. Harold (Bill Milner) is a nineteen-year-old boy with a peculiar outlook on life. Whilst most teenagers are interested in sex, drugs, alcohol, rock & roll, or at least some combination ...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/196952/a-passage-to-india-park-theatre-london-review/ As a British person, I am meant to be ashamed by the UK’s colonial past. And in some ways, I can understand that. Certain regressive laws introduced during the days of ‘ the empire on which the sun never set ’ are still in place in some of the former colonies, and let’s be honest, the colonial power often abused their position and the local populace. To get an idea of how things were, you can head to the Park Theatre to see Simon Dormandy’s adaptation of E. M. Forster’s classic  A Passage to India . In the city of Chandrapore, in British India, there are two very different types of people – The British and the Indians. They exist side by side, working ‘together’ – with the British in the positions of power – but the two races don’t mix outside of working relationships and they definitely don’t socialise. However, Dr Aziz (Asif Khan) doesn’t entirely believe that this is true. He for exam...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/196487/really-want-to-hurt-me-at-the-old-red-lion-theatre-review/ When you were a kid, did virtually every adult you ever met tell you ‘ ah yes, schooldays, best years of your life ’? I know I got told that a few times. Of course, for some people, the days at school are easy, fun and enjoyable. For others, those that may be a little bit different, they can be your worst nightmare come true. A fact that is at the heart of Ben SantaMaria’s play  Do You Really Want to Hurt Me , at the Old Red Lion, Islington Performed by Ryan Price,  Do You Really Want to Hurt Me  is a one-act monologue of a gay boy’s time at senior school in Exeter in the mid-1980s. Starting in 1984, we follow the boy’s story as he tries to come to terms with his sexuality and becoming a man at a time when homophobia was rampant and the AIDS virus had become newsworthy, with media outlets talking about the ‘Gay Plague’. Fortunately the boy has a Walkman and, thanks ...

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/196211/review-the-tempest-brockley-jack-studio-theatre/ The Tempest at Brockley Jack Studio Theatre Cole Porter famously wrote “ Brush up your Shakespeare, Start quoting him now, Brush up your Shakespeare, And the women you will wow ” nice words but for the Controlled Chaos Theatre Company fairly pointless as they present their all-female version of William Shakespeare’s  The Tempest  at the Brockley Jack. I’m sure you know the basics of the story. Prospero (Jo Bartlett), rightful Duke of Milan, and his daughter, Miranda (Michelle Pittoni), have been stranded for twelve years on an island after Prospero’s brother Antonio (Shereener Browne) – aided by Alonso, the King of Naples (Orla Sanders) – deposed him and set him adrift. Gonzalo (Alma Reising), Prospero’s friend and the King’s counselor, had secretly supplied their boat with the essentials of life, including some of Prospero’s prize books. On the island, Prospero has caused his ...