London Wall [on two crutches] - St. James Theatre, Wednesday 8th May 2012

Synopsis:

The offices of Messrs. Walker, Windermere and Co., Solicitors, London Wall, 1931.  New secretary Miss Milligan is unsure about her relationship with Hector Hammond, who works in the shipping offices downstairs.  Miss Janus's 10 year courtship with a member of the Dutch Legation doesn't seem to be going anywhere.  Miss Bufton is managing to keep several suitors "on the go" at the same time. Miss Hooper is waiting for her (married) boyfriend to get a divorce - but will she be able to get him to pop the question once it is through?  Mr. Brewer, the office Lothario, is eyeing up Miss Milligan.  Miss Willesden, one of the firm's most troublesome clients, wants to change her Will (again).  Mr. Walker merely wonders whether any of his staff will manage to do some work today instead of trying to sort their personal lives out. 

For Miss Milligan, there is a surprise in store from an unexpected direction, while Miss Janus has little inkling that a surprise is coming her way too - but it won't be nearly so welcome....

Cast:

Birkenshaw: Craig Vye

Mr. Brewer: Alex Robertson

Miss Hooper: Eleanor Yates

Miss Janus: Alix Dunmore

Miss Milligan: Maia Alexander

Miss Willesden: Marty Cruickshank

Hector Hammond: Timothy O'Hara

Miss Bufton: Mia Austen

Mr. Walker: David Whitworth

Creative Team:

Play by: John Van Druten

Director: Tricia Thorns

Set: Alex Marker

Costumes: Emily Stuart

Lighting: Duncan Coombe

I had no idea that it was so bloody exhausting hobbling round on crutches.  With a foot the size of a melon and an almost completely unbendable ankle, both jobbies had to be pressed into service to get me from Victoria Station to the St. James' Theatre, where this show has just transferred from the weird and wonderful Finborough Theatre in downtown Earl's Court.  I arrived exhausted and grouchy, and was in no mood to tackle the almost vertical stairs down into the auditorium, particularly when I noticed a most peculiar thing about the lighting in this place.  There are vertical yellow lights recessed into the wall, and they have the extremely disconcerting effect of leaving red "light smears"on your retina should you catch them out of the corner of your eye at any point.  This made my progress down the stairs somewhat more like a trip to a fairground Fun House than I would have liked; for anyone not that steady on their feet, this place is really dangerous.  Heaven knows what suffers of epilepsy make of the place.  But of course, no doubt the fashionable architects who designed the place never considered that.  It makes a strange counterpoint to the stripped back, minimalist, uber-fashionable St. James' Bar that you enter through, feeling like a poor relation and suddenly realising how shabby yours shoes look as The Trendy St. James' expense account clientele sip the latest designer cocktail up at the carrera marble bar. 

Anyway, I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to get. It turned out that I got a play which is sometimes so dated that it creaks audibly, and a play which is sometimes so relevant that it sparkles.  I got a play that has elements of high and low comedy, farce, drama. pathos and tension - so much so that I still can't work out in my head whether it could be classified as a straight play with comedy, a comedy with tragic interludes, a tragedy with elements of farce or a farce masquerading as a straight play.  At times you don't notice that you are watching a chimera, an  uneasy blending of several different dramatic styles and formats because you get caught up in the comedy (or the tragedy, or whatever other theatrical style is currently to the fore).  At other times the gear changes are very (and awkwardly) noticeable - its almost like you are watching an experimental play written by J. B. Priestly in one of his "messging about with time" modes, during the writing of which he thought "I'm going to put together a story and tell it from the point of the comedy in it, and then we're going to go back to the beginning and tell it again from the viewpoint of a different character and highlight the tragedy, then back to the beginning again and make it a straight play, and then again and make it a farce, and then at the end for one last time with all the elements blended together".  The plot is clunky and the end (or part of it) is given away completely just before the interval  in an exchange of dialogue so pointed that you almost expect a hooter to go off and the words "plot device" picked out in neon to flash on and off above the stage.  Its so obvious what is going to happen that it really is quite laughable. 

There are three superb performances, most notably by Alix Dunmore as the fading Miss Janus, wrestling with the thought that she is marrying a man she doesn't really love simply to escape the awful prospect of spending the rest of her life as the office spinster on £3 a week and caring for her elderly father.  She is ably assisted by Mia Austen as the blousy Miss Bufton (peroxide hair, dodgy vowel sound, a different man every night and the 6.10 from Liverpool Street) and Alex Robertson as the repulsive Mr. Brewer.  The side is very badly let down by Maia Alexander who cannot project her dialogue, despite having trained at RADA and who seems to drift aimlessly around the stage jellyfish-like and seemingly without any backbone whatsoever.  Her performance is so bland, so underplayed and so listless that it was only with the greatest difficultly that I managed to restrain myself from hobbling onto the stage and hitting her with my crutch. 

Some of the costumes are so accurate that they make the characters wearing them look as if they had just stepped out of a period photograph, while others look as if they had been pulled from the rag bags put out for the charity shop dustbins.  Likewise some of the hairstyles are spot on for the period, while others are at least a decade out - long, curly tresses were not fashionable duing the 1930s. The set is clever and the scene changes are slickly handled by the entire cast, elegantly and efficiently choreographed and carried out completely in character.  Elements of the direction bothered me slightly, most noticeably during the more farcical moments when seemingly everyone is sent the long way round the front of a desk rather than taking the more direct and logical route across the back of the stage.  There are some issues with badly placed chairs in the scenes in Mr Walker's office and both exits from the stage seem rather cramped, meaning that characters often appear to be sidling off through a door rather than exiting through it naturally. 

All in all a good evening, which would have been better if the play had been rather more sure of what it was trying to be.  It would have worked as a straight play, a tragi-comedy or a farce but not a blend of all three.  It's a period piece which hasn't been seen since its first run and I very much doubt whether it will ever surface again after this outing. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2013/feb/05/london-wall-review

http://www.ayoungertheatre.com/review-london-wall/

http://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/london-wall-finborough-theatre

Venus and Adonis [on a crutch] - Isango Ensemble @ Shakespeare's Globe, Friday 3rd May 2013

Synopsis:

Venus, Goddess of Love, is playing with her son Cupid and is pricked by one of his arrows. Under its influence, she sees the beautiful mortal Adonis and is consumed with passion for him. She ambushes him while he is on his way to the hung and attempts to seduce him. She conjures a mare to captivate his horse and it follows the mare into the forest, leaving Adonis trapped with no means of leaving. All day long she tries to persuade him to make love to her, offering him freely all the delights of her divine body but he remains impervious.

As evening falls, he agrees to kiss her farewell hoping that this will satisfy her so that he can escape to his friends and prepare for the next day’s hunt. Driven to new heights of arousal by the kiss and frantic at the thought that he may be killed the following day, she once again attempts to force herself on him, but is again unsuccessful and he escapes.

The following day she hears the sound of the hunt and searches for Adonis. She follows the sounds of the horns and finds a boar at bay, tusks dripping with blood. She is confronted by Death, whom she berates. Hearing the horns, she apologises to Death for her mistake but at that moment sees Adonis with his side ripped open. As she watches, his body melts away and a white flower, speckled with the red of his blood, grows where he lay. She is distraught and fortells that all love will now be tainted with jealously; it will be fickle and false, making fools of both men and women. It will be the cause of war and from that day forth those that love the most shall enjoy it the least. She fades away into the forest.

Cast:

Venus (in order of appearance):

Pauline Malefane

Busisiwe Ngejane

Noluthando Boqwana

Nobulumko Mngxekeza

Zokeka Mpotsha

Zanele Mbatha

Bongiwe Mapassa

Adonis: Mhlekazi Mosiea

Boar: Luvo Rasmeni

Death: Zebulon Mmusi

Cupid: Zamile Gantana

Creative Team:

Words: Will Shakespeare

Director: Mark Dornford-May

Conductor: Mandisi Dyantyis

Choreography: Lungelo Ngamlana

Costume: Gail Behr

Ah, spring. When a young man’s fancy turns to planting stuff on the allotment. Unfortunately, this young man managed to fall over and snap a ligament that day so it was with a crutch and a right foot looking like a black grapefruit that I managed to crawl to the Globe Theatre and review this through a red mist of pain. The things I put myself through for you lot. Having sounded off before about how bloody miserable the Globe Stewards can be, I have to (in the main) retract that statement and thank them for – more or less – putting themselves through hoops to help me get around, particularly a lovely lady called Francesca who took me up to my seat via the goods lift, allowing me a privileged look at the general backstage clutter and several cast members in their scanties. Wasn’t quite so keen on the woman afterwards who, when called upon to provide assistance in getting a taxi back to the station, said merely that there was a taxi rank at Southwark Tube Station (further away than London Bridge station itself and a long, painful hobble on one leg and a crutch). When this fact was pointed out, all we got was a telephone number scribbled on a post-it note and shoved in our general direction. So, Globe, still lots of PR training needed front of house please.

A while back, and with a different hat on, I waxed extremely lyrical of the Isango Ensemble's production of The Magic Flute at the Young Vic. In fact, it probably still stands as the most I have ever enjoyed an opera performance (there are many contenders for the least enjoyed, with a four-hour production of Ariodante in Barcelona probably taking the gong). So that’s why I staggered up to central London on public transport to see this company have a bash at an obscure Shakespeare poem and in the main, I wasn’t disappointed. It was performed with the same amount of obvious joy and conviction, even if the plot (if it can really be called such) doesn’t lend itself to quite the same level of creativity and sustained humour. Even though its presented in a mixture of languages (English, IsiZulu, IsiXhosa, SeSotho, Setswana and Afrikaans), there are laughs aplenty and nobody misses many of the subtleties of the dialogue because this production simply shows that you don’t need to know a language if the essentials of the plot are spelled out clearly enough for you through mime, facial expression, body language and the occasional bit of slapstick. Add the elemental, pounding rhythms of African music and amazing tribal choreography and you’re onto a winner. A pity that the audience was relatively thin and that this production was only showing for four performances but Bwana, I was close to throwing away my stick and getting on down with the best of them. Judging by the audience reaction, I wasn’t alone. There is something primeval about that music, those rhythms, something that transcends race, time and culture, something that just reaches inside and evokes a response from feelings and memories deep and dark and long suppressed.

The most interesting concept was to have the female lead played by seven women in rotation (and sometimes in combination or even all at once) in order to demonstrate that a goddess can show whichever face she pleases and can be mother, wife, lover or whore when attempting to capture her man, depending on the occasion (and the man). A simple length of white cloth, wound round the body in a variety of ways, starts off echoing the classical drapery that Venus traditionally wears but becomes skirt, scarf, brassiere, cloak, blindfold, rope, blanket and, eventually, shroud. There’s no need for scenery – you supply that, so you can set the story where you please, either in a sylvan glade or thornbushes and sand dunes. There is physical comedy aplenty – a seductive roll of a pair of ample hips, the batting of a pair of large brown eyes, the shooing away of an unwanted spectator. The masterstroke is having Cupid played by an enormously fat man in a skin-tight white T shirt with the word “Cupid” emblazoned across the paunch – it makes everyone laugh and gets the audience completely on your side by reassuring them that this isn’t going to be highbrow.

The paper-thin plot doesn’t really allow for much development, and the wordy bits seem to drag a little compared with the dancing and the physical action, but make no mistake, on a warm spring evening it was a pleasure to be there and feel the beat – even though some of this was the throbbing in my foot. I enjoyed it even through the pain.

What the critics thought:

http://quietasmouse.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/review-venus-and-adonis-at-shakespeares-globe/

http://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/globe-globe-venus-and-adonis-shakespeares-globe

Exhibition review - Riverbed Rotherhithe, Oxford House Gallery, Friday 5th April 2013

Contining the theme of personal objects discarded or lost by individuals, Riverbed Rotherhithe is a collection of photographs of everyday things that have somehow made their way into the Thames and been washed up on its shores.  Like the artefacts from the Pompeii exhibition reviewed recently, each one of these objects is, in itself, apparently trivial.  And yet there is a story waiting to be written about each of them if you think slightly deeper.  What was on the cassette tape?  Why did Miss S. Jamieson cut her credit card in two and throw it in the river?  Did a modern-day Cinderella lose her black patent leather shoe while running from her handsome prince, and did he ever catch her?   What is the story behind the handle and mechanism from the safe? What did it contain and how did it end up in the river? Who threw their mobile phone into the river and why? And, most importantly, what dark and dastardly deed lurks behind the discarded rubber chicken?  Murder most fowl?

This is Mary Fitton's first exhibition, and I long to see more of her work (I hear that one of her favourite subjects for holiday snaps is doorways).  Over the last 20 years, Mary - librarian, ukelele player and photographer - has been visiting the reaches of the Thames at Rotherhithe to seek out the seemingly everyday bits and pieces that are discarded or lost and end up as flotsam on the shingle.  Around 50 images, along with the items themselves, are on display at the Oxford House Gallery in Bethnal Green, and each asks more questions than they give answers, if you are feeling in a philosophical mood.  If you're not, then WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get - beautifully shot images of unconsidered trifles, discarded items of no further use, framed by the river-washed pebbles in which they were found. You can almost hear the slow lap of the muddy waves, the wash from a passing boat, the indignant squawk of a solitary seagull. 

Prints can be bought framed or unframed, and there is also a range of good quality postcards for sending or displaying. The only major disappointment is that the rubber chicken isn't one of them.  Riverbed Rotherhithe runs until 30th April.  Admission free. 

Images are (c) Mary Fitton and reproduced with the artist's permission

Exhibition review - Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum, British Museum, Monday 1st April 2013

Ah, late summer. The fruit is ripening in the orchard, the vines are heavy with grapes, the goats are bleating lazily on the hillside, and down on the beach the fishing boats are landing with that morning’s catch of lobsters, shrimps and more types of fish than you can shake a stick at. All’s right with the world. And then the local mountain goes off bang and before you know it you’re being prodded by Mary Beard and all your personal bits and bobs are being stared at by thousands of people at the British Museum.

The fascination with Pompeii and Herculaneum endures because they give us a unique snapshot of a vibrant, bustling society caught at a moment in time. Millions make the journey to Pompeii every year and return home hot, knackered, dusty, footsore, sunburned and more than slightly bewildered about what all the fuss is for. Because lets face it, Pompeii is dead. There is little there to give you the feeling that people – real people – once trod those cobbled streets and lived in those ruined houses, eating, cooking, arguing with the neighbours, laughing, dealing with the laundry, buying a new bit of furniture, planning a party or taking a bath. Its only when all your everyday bits and bobs are collected together again that it really becomes possible for other people to relate to your everyday life and realise that yes, you were once like us. That is what Pompeii lacks – a sense of real life. If your home was suddenly buried under 30 feet of volcanic ash and miraculously preserved for 2000 years, what would bring it to life for people poking round it would be the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, the open book face down on the table to mark your place, the stray sock that had eluded the washing machine, the picture that you never got around to hanging propped up against the wall - the stupid, pointless, everyday, banal details of daily life. The life you once lived in Pompeii is here in London at the moment, and we are all staring at your pile of dirty dishes and thinking “you were just like us”. And that’s what makes this exhibition so moving.

The exhibition is cleverly arranged to represent the rooms in your house that hot August (or was it October?) afternoon. Outside in the public street are displayed the tools of the tradesmen you passed every day – the brewer, the fishmonger, the carpenter, your wife’s hairdresser - along with the stone tablet that hung like an tiny inn sign from the wall, marking the edge of your property and forever bearing witness to that time you argued with your neighbour about who exactly had responsibility for sweeping that bit of path. Invite us in – we want to poke around. Yes, we will be careful of the dog. Who’s a good boy den? Who’s a woofles den? No, its fine, its only bleeding a little bit.

Here in the atrium – the “display” area of your home, its quite dark, with the only direct light coming through the hole in the roof and reflecting off the rectangular pool of water – I think you called it an impluvium? There is a tasteful mosaic floor – the bit directly inside the door shows a picture of the dog tied up outside it. You liked your silly jokes just like us, didn’t you? That’s a portrait of you and your wife, isn’t it? Very nice. Lovely. Very lifelike. A very handsome couple you make. I bet you must have had to stand still for hours while the mosaic-maker chappie did that.

That’s a very impressive herm standing in front of the pool – Lucius Caeciluis Iucundus, isn’t it? I recognised him immediately by that enormous wart on his cheek. Its very realistic – but I don’t ever remember Lucius walking around with his knackers hanging out on display. Oh, I remember you telling me – that’s apparently an invocation of good luck for the household. There’s a bit of window glass – a rare and valuable thing in your day and one we take so much for granted now. Perhaps this is why nobody seems to be giving it much attention, even though it is made out of a single sheet of transparent mica. And a little chest, with a drawer and two doors that open to show a single shelf. No doubt you kept important bits of paper and things in it once – or maybe just odd bits of string, a spare door key and some dried rose petals wrapped in a scrap of cloth. What a shame that the heat of the blast carbonised it completely; I expect it was quite pretty once, if a bit utilitarian by your standards. Why does the sight of it bring a slight lump to my throat? I suppose its because we’ve got one almost exactly the same (OK, its not burnt, but otherwise its exactly the same). You had the carpenter make it for you, we bought it flatpacked from IKEA, but its exactly the same design. Your furniture looked like ours. We were the same. I don’t like the fact that all your labels are in such small type and stuck well below eye level, as usual. Nor that they are written in such Lowest Common Denominator terminology that the curtainhook in the shape of the prow of a boat is labelled “in the shape of the prow (the front) of a ship”. I suppose I’m lucky that its not described as “the pointy bit” If it’s OK with you, I’ll take the mosaic of Fido home with me. Put it to one side for a bit while I wander round your bedroom. Glad you’ve hidden all the dirty laundry away.
 

That’s a lovely lampstand you have there. Wonderful bit of craftsmanship, and exactly what I would have expected a Roman lampstand to look like. Oh look, the bits screw apart so you can store it away when you don’t need it. Clever. Do you find bronze difficult to keep clean? I’ll take it with me – stand it in the atrium next to the mosaic. It’s very dark in here now, isn’t it? Oh shit, I’ve kicked something. Oh. Shit. Literally. Well, fancy keeping your chamber pots there. My fault for making you move the lamp. And now we’ve woken the baby.

In 2000 years time this will be the only known example in the world of a Roman baby’s cradle, probably because once you had no further use for it, you gave it away to someone who needed one, just like we do. Or chucked it away. Or took it apart and used the wood for something else. Well, its only a cradle, right? And I’m sure that the first thing you did when the ash started to fall was take the baby out of it………Oh. Oh Christ. I’m really sorry. Truly I am. Look, don’t cry.

Come out into the hortus for a breath of fresh air. There’s much more light out here and the air isn’t so full of lamp fumes What a lovely hortus – so many lovely flowers and statues. I’m not sure I like those ones ranged up against the wall – “The Dancers” you call them? Well, they would have looked much more effective stood in a ring around the fountain. . Pretty that. I expect the piping cost an awful lot of money. We’ll be able to see the bits of bronze piping and the stopcock in 2000 years time in a glass case but for now I’ll just admire the fine carving of the marble bowl and be satisfied. The fluting is very, very fine. Lovely. And the sound of the water splashing is so pleasant and cooling in this heat.

Its clever that the shape of the bowl is echoed so well by that second one. That one. The one with the pigeon sitting on it. Oh, that’s clever. It’s a garden fresco – and there was me thinking it was a big window cut into the wall showing another garden area behind it. It looks so lifelike, it had me fooled completely. We still grow all these flowers and plants today, you know. Let me see – rose, daisy, ivy, poppy, laurel, oleander, screw pine, arbutus, viburnum.

And on that one, that thrush – very possibly the most famous thrush in all history – seems to be perching on the bamboo support that the rose is climbing up. Hang on – bamboo? That’s an oriental plant, surely? Which means that your people must have known about China? And that someone had been there and brought back a bamboo plant? Can we sit down for a second while I think about this?

 

On that seat by that statue of a goat……. Oh. Its not a goat. Well – it is a goat, but not only a goat. There’s Pan. With the goat. Er….. with the goat. Er…..yes. Um. No, I don’t know why I’m blushing, I’m sure its perfectly natural that Pan is such good friends with the goat and I’m sure that its very commonplace for you to have such things in your garden because after all Pan is the god of - erm,. goats and stuff and its only my modern sensibilities that are making it seem in any way unusual or at all embarrassing to some people. It caused a terrible fuss in The Telegraph. Still, its beautifully carved. And Pan is quite a big chap, isn’t he? In the bedroom equipment department – or should that be the stable equipment?

You know, now I look at it properly, it does look very sensual – almost as if Pan is about to kiss the goat. And the goat doesn’t exactly seem to be struggling, does he? Sorry, she. I suppose its not every goat that gets to be ravished by a God. Yes. Very - unusual. Um. Shall we go in?
 

This is what we’ll call the living room, or the lounge, or the front room in 2000 years time. Yes, it is a bit dull really – a bit formal-looking with all those examples of frescoes on the walls. Seen one fresco, seen them all, really. Mind you, I like the fact that there are examples of several completely different styles hanging next to each other to explain evolving fashions in wall covering. You were just like us – forever changing your home, forever updating, forever looking at wallpaper samples. Wallpaper. Its – well – paper that you hang on the wall, in the future. Yes, I suppose it is quite difficult to look at samples of fresco. You can hardly sit there leafing through a pattern book while drinking your tea, can you? The bits would fall off.  Tea. It’s a drink, made from the dried leaves of a plant in the future. You pour hot water on it and add sugar and milk. Sugar. It’s a plant – oh never mind. Do you mind if we don’t look at any more frescoes? I’m sure that everyone in the future finds them just as dull as I do, like looking at historic bits of wallpaper. That marble carving is interesting. Why are the buildings in it leaning over? Oh, it shows an earthquake. Do you get many of them around here? No, I wouldn’t say that it was pretty, exactly. Interesting. Prescient.

 

I love that mosaic with all the sea creatures on it. I see you’ve got it where it should be, as part of the floor, whereas in the future it will be hanging on a wall in a frame. Yes, I agree, pretty pointless, but easier to stand in front of and look at. It really proves just how rich your diet was in seafood. All those different species. I like the lobsters particularly. So lifelike. Can I take it with me? Put it in the atrium next to the lampstand and the dog mosaic. Oh, I forgot to choose something from the hortus.I can’t really make up my mind between the fresco with the thrush on it or the naughty goat statue, but the rules of the game don’t allow me to take more than one thing from each room. Oh, ok, the naughty goat statue, just for the sake of a bit of shock value and to upset the Telegraph readers.

 

Kitchen this way? Why is the toilet in here? Isn’t that a bit dangerous? We would throw up our hands in horror in the future if we found a toilet in the kitchen. Well, because you can’t take a dump in the room that food is prepared in, it will make you ill. You didn’t know that back then? Is that why so many of your kitchens have good luck charms all over the place? Perhaps you should spread the word round about washing your hands properly. Because of germs. Germs. Little tiny animals that spread illness. So small you can’t see them. Really.
 

Well, I recognise most of your food. A loaf of bread, somewhat burned, but still very recognisably and obviously bread. I suppose your baker didn’t have time to stop and take the loaves from the oven when the sky began to fall. And so they stayed in the oven for 2000 years. Its round, marked into sections. Tear and share.

And dishes of figs and dates and nuts and pomegranates and poppy seeds – all ripe. So it couldn’t have been August, more like mid to late September or even October. And a big glass jar with a cork stopper, still with the dregs of olive oil clinging to the inside. But you were like us – you enjoyed your food, and you didn’t mind shelling out for good ingredients now and again. How amazing that, after all this time we could (if we were allowed) uncork the bottle, put it to our lips and taste the oil made from the olives all those many centuries ago.

 

What a beautiful, beautiful colander. Just like the ones we have in 2000 years time, even if ours are not nearly so decorative. Nor made of bronze. But why shouldn’t something utilitarian still be beautiful to look at? Something like that was obviously a real pleasure to use.
 

And this is the drain that runs under your kitchen floor into the common sewer under the street? And here’s a display of things that you threw into the drain. Plates and dishes that someone made, someone else bought, used for a while, dropped and broke, scooped up and dropped them down the drain in order to be rid of them. And other things too, that you dropped in the street and that rolled away from your grasping fingers and disappeared from sight into the sewer while you stood there and cursed, or which fell from your pocket unnoticed and were kicked by an sandaled, unheeding foot, never to be seen again – or so you thought. A small oil lamp in the shape of an eagle, a tiny votive statue of a mother cradling a baby and which we now call “The Lady of the Drain”. Perhaps the owner was pregnant and on her way to the temple to offer the statue on the altar in exchange for the safe delivery of the child. a silent, desperate plea for clemency. Or perhaps the child had already been born and was sick, and this was a gift to the god of healing –, a trade for all those weary, frightened hours of gently rocking a cradle by the light of a flickering oil lamp and the prayers which lacked the power to heal. We’ll never know.

How you must have panicked when you got to the temple and found the statue was no longer in its wrapping, how you must have desperately retraced your steps through the crowded streets, scanning the road, worrying that the gods had truly turned their faces away from you. The child would have died anyway, that autumn afternoon, but you didn’t know that. We know, and it’s the broken plates and the tiny lamp and the little statue that bring home the fact that you were once like us, you had your little culinary accidents while your mind was occupied with bigger things, you threw things away and thought no more of them, you lost them and thought of them constantly and missed them and shared the news of their loss through your tears. It’s the broken plates and the tiny lamp and the little statue that make me pause and swallow the lump that rises to my throat and shout at you down the years that you should pack up your things and run, before its too late and the sky turns dark.
 

I've stopped choosing things to take home.  Put them back - they don't belong to me. They belonged to you.

And now, around this corner, are the things you tried to take with you at the last moment. Things that were found in the boathouse, down by the shore as you crouched in the darkness with your family, your friends, your slaves, the people from the house across the street. Things that we will find among your bones. A display of things marked “Choices – objects useful, valuable or simply cherished, carefully gathered or quickly grabbed; things that represent choices made in those few terrifying, uncertain hours”. A large oil lamp with shades made from transparent horn, which you grabbed to light your way through the dark streets leading down to the bay. A fistful of small change – the day’s takings from someone’s business. A wooden tablet, the writing on it long gone. What did it say? Why was it so important to you that you sought it out, took it from its hiding place and ran with it down to the shore? Did it prove you were no longer a slave? Was it the deed to your home, your business? Proof of your marriage? A good luck charm, which brought you no luck. A valuable pair of earrings – maybe a wedding gift. The key to your front door, slammed and locked behind you in the panic to keep your things safe until your return, a key that would never be used again, a key for a door that no longer exists, a door that you used a dozen times a day, a door that squeaked on its hinges and that you kept meaning to get fixed. A door that slammed shut as the ashes fell.

And finally, here are you.

Buried in solidified ash, your body rotted, leaving an empty shape. The shape of you. Sitting there – crying, coughing, weeping, praying, regretting the things said and the things unsaid, who knows? Only you. And there the rich woman, with the golden hair clasp, the bangle, the rings, the bag of coins. And here a family, perhaps your neighbours, perhaps strangers. Husband, wife, children. Thinking, hoping, praying that in the tiny cupboard underneath the stairs they were safe from the terror that fell from the sky.

Whoever they were, whoever you were, I looked around your home, shared your food, drank your wine, stroked your dog, woke your child, admired your wife’s jewellery and enjoyed spending time in your company.

Pax, Romana.

Peter and Alice - Noel Coward Theatre, Wednesday 20th March 2013

Synopsis

Peter Llewleyn Davis (J. M. Barrie’s inspiration for the character of Peter Pan) and Alice Liddell Hargreaves (Lewis Carroll’s inspiration for the character of Alice in Wonderland) meet before appearing at a public event organised by Davis’s publishing house. They ruminate on what being a muse has meant to them and their lives and the trouble it has caused them

 

Cast

Peter Llewleyn Davies – Ben Wishaw

Alice Liddell Hargreaves – Judi Dench 

Lewis Carroll – Nicholas Farrell

James Barrie – Derek Riddell

Peter Pan – Olly Alexander

Alice in Wonderland – Ruby Bentall

Arthur/Reggie/Michael – Stefano Bratch

 

Creative Team:

Script – John Logan

Director – Michael Grandage

Set and costumes – Christopher Oram

Lighting – Paule Constable

 

Review by Tumnus the Faun, our Narnia Arts Correspondent

Dateline: Eternal Winter, but never Christmas

 

Mr. Tumnus was beginning to get very tired of sitting next to Him Indoors in the Upper Circle, and of having nothing to do; once or twice he had peeped into the programme Him Indoors was reading but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a programme,” thought Tumnus, “without pictures or conversations?” So he was considering, in his own mind (as well as he could, for the heating in the theatre made him feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of going to the toilet would be worth the trouble of getting up and fighting his way back through the row of seats, when suddenly Judi Dench appeared on the stage.

 

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Tumnus think it so very much out of the way to see that Judi Dench actually took a watch out of her pocket and looked at it, remarked “We won’t be late because we’re only on for 90 minutes, and as there is no interval at all, we’ll all be home nicely by 10pm”. Burning with curiosity, he ran across the stage after it, and was just in time to see her appear in a new play at the Noel Coward Theatre. In another moment, Tumnus followed Ms. Dench, never once considering how in the world he was to get out again.

 

The play went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then took a strange turn and dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Tumnus had not a moment to think about stopping himself before he found himself falling down a very deep hole indeed. Either the play was very deep, or it was very slow, so Tumnus had plenty of time as he went down to wonder what, if anything, was going to happen next. He looked at the sides of the hole, and noticed they were filled with cupboards and bookshelves; he took a jar from one of the shelves as he passed, it was labelled “Wonderful new play by John Logan starring Judi Dench and Ben Wishaw”, but to his great disappointment it was empty; far emptier than the Noel Coward Theatre which was packed out for the entirety of the play’s run already. Down, down, down. Would the play never come to an end? “I wonder how many minutes its been so far?” he said aloud. “We must be getting somewhere near the centre of it by now. Let me see: that would be about 45 minutes I think--” Down, down, down.

 

There was nothing else to do, so Tumnus soon began talking again. “ThinButWordy will miss me very much tonight, I should think!” (ThinButWordy was the plot). He felt that he was dozing off, and had just began to dream that he was watching something interesting, when suddenly, thump! Thump! Down he came on a heap of psychoanalytical babble, and the play was over. Suddenly he came upon a little three-legged table; on it was a script of the play addressed to Judi Dench and bearing the words READ ME. “Rubbish,” thought Mr. Tumnus, “everyone knows that Judi Dench never reads any of her scripts before taking a job”. It was all very well to say READ ME, but Tumnus was not going to do that in a hurry – he had never forgotten that, if you don’t read your script beforehand, it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later. However, this script was not marked “box office poison” so Tumnus ventured to taste it, and finding that it was dark, and bitter, and bleak, and full of angst, he very soon finished it off.

 

“What a curious feeling!” said Tumnus. “My childhood memories of long, golden summers down by the river with the Revd. Dodgson must be being polluted by the current apparent fascination for retrospective paedophilia”. He waited for a few minutes to find out if his memories were going to be polluted any further; “for it might end, you know, in me finding out that J.M. Barrie was an appalling predatory homosexual with a nasty thing for young boys”. Soon his eye fell on a little box that was lying under the table; he opened it and found in it a very small excuse for an evening at the theatre, even if the scenery was lovely. He watched a little bit, and was quite surprised to find that he remained terribly unimpressed with Mr. Logan’s new play. To be sure, this is what generally happens when a playwright has a major hit with his first one and is asked to write another one, perhaps with Judi Dench in mind, and while he watched it, Tumnus got so much into the way of expecting something to happen but finding out that it was really just a series of flashbacks in which the late 19th century fashion for being very chummy with young children was turned on its head and made into an object of repellent fascination by vast sections of the public, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for it to be suggested that the world was a different place back then and it was quite commonplace for single, middle-aged men to strike up close relationships with pre-pubescent children and sublimate their desires by writing fairy stories about them.

 

“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Tumnus, as the play got very dark indeed and it transpired that neither Alice nor Peter had had a very jolly time of it when they grew up. “Are we to sit here while Alice and Peter are joined on stage not only by Mr. Barrie and the Revd. Dodgson but also by their literary counterparts who are very probably only here to add a little bit of meta-dimension to the script because the author has already said what he wanted to say, which in all probability was not that much to begin with, and needs to pad the script out a bit?. I’ll try and say “How doth the little– ” and he crossed his hands on his lap and began to repeat it.

 

“How doth the little impresario

Improve his West End cred

To posit the grim scenario

That it’s all to do with BED!

How cheerfully he seems to grin

How neatly spreads his claws

And welcomes all the punters in

And glories in applause!”

 

  “I’m sure those are not the right words,” said poor Tumnus, with a sudden burst of tears. As he said these words, his foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! he was up to his chin in hot water. Contrariwise, it seemed to Mr. Tumnus that the play had shut up round him like a portmanteau, and although it was practically critic-proof because it had got Judi Dench and Ben Wishaw in and is practically sold out for the rest of the run (as had been mentioned previously), it was all much of a muchness and although it purports to hold a mirror up to the reality of childhood fame, the reflection doesn’t really show you very much of what anyone wants to see. Apart from Judi Dench.

Burn the Floor - Shaftesbury Theatre, Monday 11th March 2013

Cast:

Sorry – no cast list apart from Robin Windsor and Kristina Rihannof- I didn’t have time to get a programme before going in due to a mix up over getting the tickets. The Burn The Floor website is a bit of a mess and nowhere on it could I find a list of last night’s performers.

Oh, the glamour. Oh, the endless hobnobbing with celebrities. Oh, the champagne. Oh, the paparazzi. Love, the endless socialising I put myself through to bring you these reviews. It’s a bit like being one of the West End Whingers. Daaarling, we were all there last night (except, apparently, the West End Whingers. Z-listers, darling, Z-listers). Denise van Outen, wearing so much eye-liner she looked like she had been lent by the Chinese Government to take part in a breeding programme at Edinburgh Zoo. Lisa Riley, completely tanked up and bellowing like an elephant seal on ecstacy. Lewis Smith, muttering that so many people wanted his photograph that his interval ice-cream was going mushy. Arlene Phillips, who thought it was fancy dress and who had come as a Bag Lady. Russell Grant, who just popped in for the first half. Nancy Delolio, looking like an old leather handbag in drag and doing her best to rid the world of small furry animals by wearing several of them. Johnny Ball, looking bewildered. Suzanne Shaw – no, me neither. Russell’s Theatre Reviews. Mwah, mwah, mwah. The only people missing were Brucie’s life support machine and Claudia’s fringe.

Well, darlings, if you like relentlessly upbeat music, arse-stretchingly tight trousers, glistening torsos and the occasional glitter ball, this really is for you. Subtle it ain’t. Its camp, cheesy and just that bit too overwhelmingly high-octane for its own good, really. Now, I’m not going to say that the cast can’t dance, because just watching them made my feet hurt. These guys and gals can move. Its just that, given the instruction to “Burn The Floor”, this show seems to want to take it literally. There is so much energy pouring off the stage that it pins you back in your seat like the G-force of a really fast take off and leaves you feeling like you’ve just been through a particularly energetic spin cycle in your favourite washing machine. Mind you, if anyone had thought to literally burn the floor, it might have raised the temperature a couple of degrees in the chilly old barn that is the Shaftesbury Theatre. What is needed with this show is the occasional bit of restraint as a counterpoint. A passing attempt at this is made with a couple of all-too-brief classic tailcoat and floaty dress ballroom numbers, but these are really the only breathing spaces the audience gets in two hours. There is so much relentless choreography that after about 20 minutes you stop registering it and – more importantly – stop appreciating it. There’s also a bit too much raunch – granted, there are some beautiful bodies on stage, both male and female, but a bit of decorous restraint doesn’t go amiss sometimes. You wouldn’t get Anton Du Beke prancing around shirtless all evening. Mind you, if I had a torso like some of the ones on show last night, I’d be walking around half naked on a practically permanent basis. I wonder why male dancers always shave their armpits?

The show’s putative stars – Mr. Windsor and Ms Rhiannof - are strangely and noticeably underused most of the evening. On several occasions they start a dance routine off, and you sit back expecting a powerhouse, showcase routine – and then they disappear, to be replaced by an ensemble. In fact, as far as memory serves, they only do one complete routine all evening. Still, its good that they are not so up themselves that they refuse to join in with the big ensemble numbers, but it has to be said that they do look, erm, somewhat mature when surrounded by the rest of the cast. Rhiannof has got the most gorgeous pair of pins and can vamp with the best of them, but it does occasionally get slightly embarrassing when her quarry looks about 15. Mr. Windsor tries hard to be butch but you can tell he’d rather be getting his sweaty paws all over the boys. There must have been poor visibility over the Thames last night because every time Mr. Windsor made an appearance, Foghorn Riley rattled the eardrums of anyone sitting within a radius of 500 feet. It was the shout of “Cooom on Ooncle Robin!!!” that finally reduced me to hysteria.

Musically it’s a real rag-bag, seemingly slung together with little rhyme or reason. Along with a classic paso doble number (nice to hear, but sounding incredibly out of place among the grunge), there is a stunning jazz performance by – I think – Vonzell Solomon, which literally stops the show in its tracks for a couple of minutes. This lady is one ballsy singer, absolutely born to be headlining in a smoky 1930s speakeasy in downtown Chicago and I would gladly have heard more from her. Her male counterpart suffers by comparison, but I’m not going to be quite as disparaging about his as Him Indoors was. He’s got a decent enough voice but sounds a bit forced in the upper register.

The show occasionally spills out into the auditorium – there is a particularly excruciating “audience warm up” session before the first half which I could well have done without. I don’t know whether this is a permanent part of the act or whether this was just a filler thrown on to cover a backstage delay, but its supremely naff. Mind you, its lucky it happened; due to an administrative mix up we had been told the show started at 7.30 when, due to it being Press Night (oh, the glamour!) it actually started at 7pm. It was 7.20 when we got into the auditorium and found it bewilderingly packed out, with the “warm up” in full flow. During the second half finale, the audience were so hyped up by the dancing in the aisles that I’m surprised Lisa Riley didn’t start ripping the seats out with her teeth. So, the Burn the Floor juggernaut rolls on, propelled by sweat, testosterone and enough raw energy to power a small town. Its not for everyone – its bewilderingly full on. A little more restraint at times would make it considerably less exhausting for the audience. Undeniably there is some major dance talent on that stage but if you’re fans of Anton and Erin, you might have to go home and lie down for a couple of hours afterwards.

Tickets kindly provided by www.showsinlondon.co.uk/

Chess - Union Theatre, Sunday 17th February 2013

 Synopsis:

The World Chess Championship is about to take place in Merano, Italy. The American is defending his title against a new challenger, The Russian The American gives a press conference at his hotel at which he behaves petulantly and aggressively, denouncing his opponent, every other Soviet and the press with equal vigour. His performance is watched on television by the Russian and his KGB-employed second, Molokov, in their hotel. Molokov is inclined to dismiss the American as a nut. The Russian concedes that his opponent is eccentric but realises that every outrageous move made by the American is a calculated one. The Russian reflects upon his own rise to the top

The American stages an effective and insulting walkout during the Arbiter's lengthy recap of the match regulations immediately after the Opening Ceremony. None are more insulted than his own second, Florence Vassy, who is left to defend her player’s indefensible behaviour to a sneering and pompously protesting Molokov. During this exchange she meets the Russian player for the first time. The Russian shows some sympathy for her situation. Florence confronts the American back at their hotel, telling him that she can not tolerate his treatment of her for much longer. We learn that she was born in Hungary, left that country when only two with her mother in 1956 during the uprising and is now a naturalised British Citizen.. She has never discovered what happened to her father who 'disappeared' when the Hungarian uprising was crushed. She is determined to find out.

The first game of the contest begins with an atmosphere of mutual loathing hanging over the proceedings as the two players make their first moves. Tension builds as much offboard as on with both men resorting to underhand tactics to distract or enrage the other. Suddenly, high drama as the two players fling the board up in to the air. They walk out after nearly coming to blows. Florence and Molokov have an unofficial meeting to discuss the collapse of the match. Florence takes the initiative and tells Molokov where and when he is to deliver his player for a secret, off the record, meeting between the two contestants, in order that the match can resume without either party losing face. Molokov attempts to rattle Florence at one stage by implying that he knows some Hungarian history she might want to learn about.

Florence and the American arrive for the secret meeting. The Russian is late and the American leaves the restaurant in mock disgust. Almost at once the Russian and a junior member of his back up team arrive to find no opponent waiting for them, only his opponent's Second. During the conversation that follows, the Russian and Florence are quickly attracted to each other, the almost romantic mood rudely interrupted when the American returns. Some days later, the American and Florence are discussing the progress of the match. Things are going badly for the American who is unpleasantly agitated. He blames Florence for his failure and as they hurl abuse at each other, she tells him that she is going to leave him after the match, even if by some miracle he won it. The American is devastated and alternates between fury and pleading with her to stay. His paranoia about the Reds surfaces - he is convinced that the Soviets have something to do with both his loss of form and Florence's desertion, At an unidentified Western embassy some days later, the Russian, the newly crowned World chess champion, asks for political asylum.

The following year, The Russian is to defend his title against a new challenger from the Soviet Union in Bangkok. Florence and the Russian who have been lovers since his defection, are in Bangkok. They discuss his new opponent and wonder why the American is in town, as he has played no serious chess since his defeat in Merano. They also talk about the refusal of the Soviet authorities to let his wife out of the U.S.S.R.

Molokov and his team are confident that this time around they have a player who is totally trustworthy and can be relied upon (a) to win and (b) to stay in Russia. The Russian is interviewed on Thai TV. To his amazement he discovers that his interviewer is the American who proceeds to ask him about his personal life, about Florence and about his politics - never about chess. The American finally tells him (on the air) that arrangements have been made to fly his wife into Bangkok in time for the match. Enraged, the Russian storms out.

The Russian and Florence watch his wife (Svetlana) on television arriving in Bangkok. The event brings the tension between them to a climax. Florence is left alone with the TV still showing Svetlana's image. She recalls how well she knows the lover who has just left her. Svetlana recalls how well she knows her husband

The American forces his way into the Russian's quarters to offer him a deal. Despite the personal pressures already weighing heavily on the Russian, he has begun the match in great style, winning the first two games. The American now says that if his winning streak should suddenly come to an end then Florence will not be given information he claims to have received from the Soviets about her father. The American then approaches Florence, suggesting that if she would only return to him, not only would they be once again the best chess team ever witnessed, he also would be able to provide her with news (he does not say whether it is good or bad) she has always wanted to know about her past. She too rejects his offer. The deciding game in the match begins. Molokov and the American have a conversation which reveals them to have been in league against the Russian, albeit for very different reasons. Florence, watching the match, although not knowing that her lover been put under pressure to lose, sees his obsession with victory destroying his ability to care for her.

The Russian, defying everyone, plays like a dream and annihilates his opponent. He rejoices in his victory, but even as the crowds acclaim him and as his wife vainly attempts to make some kind of contact with him, he almost immediately feels a sense of hollow anti-climax. He despises himself for the narrow selfish ambitions and desires that satisfy him. So does Svetlana; any chance of reconciliation between them is gone. Florence and the Russian reflect simultaneously but separately, on their story that they thought was a very happy one; like the game of chess the game of love can be played in an almost limitless number of variations. Perhaps this was just one of many games that end in stalemate.

 

Cast

Florence – Sarah Galbraith
Anatoly – Nadim Naaman
Freddie – Tim Oxbrow
Svetlana – Natasha Barnes
Molokova – Gillian Kirkpatrick
Arbiter – Rhys Barlow

 

Creative Team

Directed by Christopher Howell and Steven Harris
Musical Direction by Simon Lambert
Musical Arrangements by Christopher Peak
Lighting by Ben Rogers

Bugger this production – I’ve spent the last couple of days humming One Night in Bangkok while I do the washing up (note: the song is not called One Night in Bangkok While I do The Washing Up) and trying to work out whether my vocal range would be better suited to the Elaine Page line or the Barbara Dickson line in I Know Him So Well. If you are of a certain age, this song will take you back immediately to the late 80s and hearing it on the radio on what seemed like a 15 minute loop; it was regularly on Simon Bates’ Our Tune on Radio 1, which they had on constantly at work and which used to do my head in even then. What does my head in even more is Him Indoors screeching Pity the Child around the place all the time.

I admit that I wasn’t really in the mood to go and see this; three times a week is more than enough for any man, and it being Sunday, I would rather have been curled up on the sofa with a cup of coffee in that semi-somnolent state which descends on you after Sunday lunch. After a certain amount of hilarity caused by Him Indoors’ complete and total inability to read a map properly (I swear that if he had been born Scott of the Antarctic, he would have spent quite a few years crawling round in the mosquito-infested mangrove swamps of equatorial Guinea muttering “I could have sworn it was this way” and kicking the huskies) we arrived at the admittedly unprepossessing Union Theatre and proceeded to freeze our nipples off for ¾ of an hour waiting for the auditorium to open. Whatever you do, go to the toilet before leaving home; there is a poster in the foyer thanking people for making donations towards a new piano but I think the money would have been much better spent doing something about the loos because even the thought of them makes me walk around saying ick ick ick. There’s something about these loos that puts me in mind of that film Quatermass and the Pit – I don’t know exactly what that big, green, glistening patch on the wall is but I swear its bigger every time I see it.

This is a well-enough directed show – even though it does go on a bit; 2 ¾ hours is a long time, and even then there have been cuts. There are some clever bits of staging and direction – but you can’t see very much of it because the place is just too damned small for it. During dance numbers here I’m always terrified that a dancer’s foot is going to take my eye out or that someone being lifted up on the shoulders of another dancer is going to crack their head painfully and messily on the lighting grid. Often you get someone standing on the stage with their nose less than six inches from your own, desperately trying not to make eye contact with you while they sing, and Chess is no exception Its crying out to be performed in a bigger space with better sightlines. Too often your view of the performers is obscured by another cast member’s backside, people are cramped together and only the lucky people in the front row of the middle block of seats (they’re arranged in a double row around three sides of a square) can actually appreciate the direction and choreography of a lot of the show. (Note to punters: after the interval, you are supposed to return to the seat you occupied during the first half. Two old dears decided to swap sides after the interval; cue lots of quietly outraged honking from the people they displaced when they returned to find their seats already occupied)

The black and white colour scheme is really overdone, as well. I know its relevant to the show, and makes good design sense when you are costuming on a limited budget, but when the entire inside of the theatre is painted black, watching black and white clad people on a black floor surface for nearly three hours, all brightly lit from above, is really, really tiring on the eyes because you get starved of visual stimulation. One is likely (if one is me) to start looking at small things in too much detail in order to keep your eyes occupied – for some reason, there are some really odd shirt collars on display and I can’t tell you how much I ended up being irritated by them. Semicircular scoops seem to have been cut out of them – perhaps for another show – and they look really very strange indeed. I noticed that the wheeled light box used for one of the final numbers – nice touch, very inventive, perhaps could have been used for more than just that one scene – needed a damned good cleaning, and when the member of the cast using it began to gob liberally all over it while singing at the top of his voice it was as much as I could do not to lean over, proffer my handkerchief and suggest that a good wipe might not go amiss. Perhaps I should have offered it instead to the chap in the front row who, during one of the quiet bits, began to clean his friend’s glasses using the bottom bit of his jumper and showing 2/3 of the theatre six inches of hairy navel.

Star of the show is undoubtedly Sarah Galbraith as Florence, who can belt with the best, but I did wonder why, if she was playing an American, all her vowel sounds were quite so Julie Andrews (getting toooo noooooe you, getting toooo nooooeee awl abouuwht you). No trace of an American accent whatsoever. No, I know Elaine Paige didn’t do one either, but that’s no excuse. Nadim Naaman is suitably morose as the Russian, and Tim Oxbrow almost literally screeches his tits off getting some of the high notes (must be a hell of a role to sing six or seven times a week for three weeks. One wonders if he will ever be able to sing again after this show. Rhys Barlow is a bit weedy to play The Arbiter, and I wondered why in this version he doesn’t sing One Night in Bangkok. I also wondered what the reasoning was in turning the role of Molokov into a female part, as it does rather unbalance the power-play aspect of the show. There is a lot of very impressive choral work going on in the concerted numbers, a great deal of which is unfortunately drowned out by the sheer volume of the orchestra. Performing a very loud show in a very small space does rather leave the audience somewhat frazzled – I spent most of the journey home feeling like there was someone sitting on my left shoulder playing a pair of cymbals. The music is pleasurable enough in that 1980s sung-through fashion (you will undoubtedly be humming a lot of it in the days following the performance; those ABBA boys knew how to put a good tune together. But the whole thing needs a bigger home in order that the direction can be fully appreciated. And the entire Russian/American plot now feels subtly dated and a little tired.

 

What the critics thought:

http://www.westendframe.com/2013/02/Review-Musical-Chess.html

http://www.thepublicreviews.com/chess-union-theatre-london/

http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/38222/chess-the-musical

http://www.backstagepass.biz/2013/02/theatre-review-chess-union-theatre.html

Now, get that hairspray ready: