Hamnet – Garrick Theatre – Saturday 17th February 2024

(Rated Novel 5/5, Play 4/5) William Shakespeare had a Wife, Who caused him no Strife, By name of Agnes Hathaway, She cheered him on the right Way, To lead us to Emote, From the Plays what he Wrote! Whoops, ok, I will leave that there and refer you to the master playwright William Shakespeare for far superior witty. profound and moving rhyming – or not – Elizabethan verse and prose. However, in ‘Hamnet’ the play/novel, Will Shakespeare plays a supporting (or not, depending on how you view the story 😉) role to Agnes Hathaway, who is in fact the key character in Maggie O’Farrell’s book, and the play adaptation by Lolita Chakrabarti.

The Agnes created by O’Farrell was a herbalist and healer with ‘uncommon powers’, maybe psychic and possibly enabling her to communicate with the spirts. In the book, we are introduced from the outset to her son, the titular character Hamnet, and the story jumps around in time as we follow Agnes’ highly moving story of love with Will, the joy of children, the pain of separation from her husband while he lives in London to make his name as Queen Elizabeth I’s most famous playwright, and devastating impact of ‘the pestilence’ on her family. O’Farrell says ‘Hamnet’ is a work of imagination and that her 'idle speculation' on Shakespeare's son and the reason for his death led to this highly emotive extraordinary exploration into the possible characters/personalities of Hamnet's mother Agnes, twin sister Judith, older sister Susanna and maybe most notably his never named father! It has a lovely stream of consciousness element and wondrous exploration of love, relationships, death and grief. Above all if there is even the remotest 'factual truth' to it William Shakespeare would never have found himself without Anne Hathaway and the influence of her way of being as drawn in this book can be seen throughout all his plays. Add to that the power of the loss of their golden-haired boy and how William may have written Hamlet as a way of processing that loss... and therein lies the playwright's genius through life experience.

I loved the book, and this play not so much. For me the latter suffers a little from having to be told in chronological order, though twins Hamnet (Ajami Cabey) and Judith (Alex Jarrett) do appear on stage in the loft as though communicating to their mother Agnes (Madeleine Mantock) even before she has met their father William (Tom Varey). I think my other difficulty with it was simply we were sitting so far back, it was hard sometimes to even tell who was which character, let alone be able to explore the beauty of their facial emotional expressions. We do, however, get a strong sense of the nature of life in Stratford, and later London, at that time, and the recreation of Agnes’ affinity with nature and how she loves to be at one with it, is remarkably clear. Will is immediately struck by Agnes when he sees her flying her hawk. She is beautifully wild and free, both grounded, yet other-worldly, and of course then he falls for her. It doesn’t take them long at all to conceive their first child Susanna (Phoebe Campbell). Having put a baby in her belly. Will has little choice but to marry Agnes. For me, the play somehow gives the impression that Will was trapped into this marriage, and then held back from seeking fame and fortune by Agnes and their children. I got a totally different sense from the book, where Agnes very much encourages Will to go to London, knowing he can make more of himself than as a Latin Teacher. Meanwhile Agnes very much held everything together at home. One of the devices I loved in the play was as Agnes was in labour with them, each of the actors playing her children, gradually walked over to her and gifted her a ‘baby’ carried in their arms. As always, act 1 was the set-up, and act2 explored at far greater depth the connection between Will’s family experiences and aspects he put in his plays. Ophelia gifting herbs before she commits suicide and the witches could all have been inspired by his ‘medicine woman wife’, and twins appear in many of his plays. Again, for me though, showing that on stage, rather than expressing it in the character’s thought processes in a book, somehow take us away from Agnes and more into Will’s mind. Until, that it, the denouement. Following Hamnet’s death, Agnes travels to London and witnesses a production of ‘Hamlet’. It gave me, and clearly her too, goosebumps seeing Ajami Cabey (Hamnet) playing Hamlet “Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt…”

As far as I could see the RSC ensemble gave great performances, and it was a very good production. I think I personally am always greedy to be able to fully experience performers in all their close-up glory!

Unfortunately, as I write, this production of ‘Hamnet’ has finished, but there will always be productions of Agnes’ husband’s plays for all time, and now we have Maggie O’Farrell’s book bringing Agnes and her beloved son Hamnet to life for all time too. Hamnet – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2024

Backstairs Billy – The Duke of York’s Theatre – Saturday 13th January 2024

(Rated 3/5) Written by Marcelo Dos Santos, ‘Backstairs Billy’ is the story of the relationship between Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother (Mum of Queen Elizabeth II in case anyone is not aware of who she was), and her manservant, William ‘Billy’ Tallon. I imagine it is inspired by the facts, as much as it might be possible for the author to know them from public records, and from those who knew Billy. It is entirely set in Clarence House, in 1979 and 1951, the latter being when Billy first met the Queen Mother (QM) at the age of 15 years old. He had written to the then consort Queen Elizabeth and her husband King George VI, asking whether he could be of service to them. He would remain working as an ever increasingly closer companion to QM, until her death in 2002 at the age of 101. Billy survived her by only 5 years, dying in 2007, when he was 72.

OK, so why this one, you may ask… or even if you don’t, I’m going to tell you 😉 As many others did, I felt a great fondness for QM, and in the past have really enjoyed stories of Queens and their servants – ‘Mrs Brown’ and ‘Victoria and Abdul’, with Judi Dench as Mrs. Brown aka Queen Victoria to Billy Connolly’s John Brown in the former and again Judi with Ali Fazal as Abdul Karim in the latter. AND, as with Dame Judi too, I have a great love of Dame Penelope Wilton, yet never seen her on stage. Dame Penny W, (to distinguish her from Dame Penny Keith 😉), has appeared in numerous stage and screen roles – my personal favourite being as Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North and then Prime Minister in ‘Doctor Who’. Remember, ‘We know who you are’ lol.

The play is much more about its titular character than the QM. He is played by Luke Evans. We witness how the innocence of young Billy (Ilan Galkoff) being taught to dance by QM transforms to the power and control older Billy came to have over proceedings at the QM’s engagements, particularly when she received visitors to the Garden Room in Clarence House. We see the clash that develops between Billy’s personal gay lifestyle and the etiquette of functions hosted by QM. It is a gentle, light-hearted romp in the most part… until it isn’t, and Billy gets too big for his boots and receives a pretty shocking put-down from QM! Very rapidly after that the play finishes, which feels a little odd. As an audience member, I felt too much in shock to fully appreciate the joy of a mostly beautiful relationship between them.

Pre-show the gay anthems of 1979 play loud and proud in the auditorium of The Duke of York’s Theatre, getting us in the mood 😉 Though, I did naively comment ‘This doesn’t sound appropriate for the Queen Mother’! So, this is one, I’m glad to have seen, but wouldn’t recommend as such. Penny W was very good as a Penelope Wilton version of QM, but didn’t convince me as QM in my own imagination. Tom Rand created her outfits, and they were very QM as we saw her in public. Luke Evans is fine as Billy – though I don’t know how Billy was! – and did some good impressions of now King Charles and Princess Margaret. But, something was missing for me in them together – though I obviously can’t say how them together were!! There was some lovely dancing, some amusing farcical happenings, oh, and… some real live Corgis, but not enough of the latter for what I anticipated!!!

‘Dear, oh dear’, as The King might say about this play featuring his Granny 😉 BackstairsBilly – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2024

The Time Traveler’s Wife Musical – The Apollo Theatre – Saturday 23rd December 2023

(Rated 5/5 Musical, 7/5 Book, 5/5 TV, 3/5 Film)

Audrey Niffenegger's 'The Time Traveller's Wife' is in my top 5 favourite books (alongside George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’, The Works of William Shakespeare, Michael Cunningham’s ‘The Hours’ and (maybe?) Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’). I so love the story I've now experienced it in 4 different media, and they are all associated with special memories. I first read the book on a weekend Mum- and Fred(dog)-sitting. Sadly, Mum was on a major low, but looking after her was always special to me. I sat on the sofa, with Fred lying across my left hip, and read to the end, never wanting it to finish Later, Mum would enjoy the same copy of the book, pictured in accompanying photos. I saw the film for my birthday in 2009 with friends. None of us were very impressed, but still a beautiful memory. I watched the TV series on my own sitting in Mum's chair, and absolutely loved it - written by genius TV scribe, Stephen Moffat and with one of my newer favourite actors, Rose Leslie, as Clare - I love her beautiful, sensitive, expressive face, and Moffat adapted it very cleverly, embracing the skill of apparently chaotically jumping around in time, yet in a very structured way, in Audrey Niffenegger’s book.

And now I've seen the stage musical and made more special memories with my sister-from-another-mister (she knows who she is 😉) .Such a fabulous day and experience. We both felt Act2 was better than Act1 – mind you that is usually the case as first acts usually suffer from having to set things up and so maybe come across as slower and less dramatic. We found Joanna Woodward as Clare initially a little too ‘shouty’, but I think in time, (pun actually unintended), forgave her and she did sing and perform very well indeed. David Hunter was a great Henry, and we especially enjoyed the dance/movement section in Act2, exhibiting his time-travel. My theatre companion really liked Tim Mahendran as Gomez, and whomever we had as Young Clare/Alba (Ava Critchell/Poppy Pawson/Lily Hanna/Holly-Jade Roberts) was adorable. The idea to create a musical of the book came from Producer Colin Ingram’s Wife 😊 (how appropriate!). The book was adapted by Lauren Gunderson, who wrote about how efficient a musical has to be, compared with an original book, which allows the development of concept, characters and their relationships to grow gradually, intricately and – in this case – so artistically creatively over time, yet with all sorts of time shifts too. The musical had to come right in there with the first song telling us the nature of the big issue in Clare & Henry’s lives together, whilst in the book, the structure and skill of the placement of their meetings at different ages and times, so providing different challenges to them both at each meeting, is part of the extraordinary genius of Audrey Niffenegger’s composition. An additional draw for me (as if it being one of my favourite stories wasn’t enough) was that the music and songs were created by Eurythmics Dave Stewart and Joss Stone. I’ve said before that I love the way a song in a musical is able to encompass the essence, story and motivation of the particular character singing it. Clearly, there are other songs, and some duets, some ensembles, which provide other aspects of the whole production. The staging was magical and, for me, the whole show moved me to tears.

So, I'm still thinking about my 'leader board, but The Book definitely top, the film definitely bottom, and, in the words of Claudia Winkleman 'everybody else in between' TheTimeTraveler’sWife – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2023

The Enfield Haunting – Theatre Royal, Brighton – Saturday 18th November 2023

(Rated 2.5/5) So, the draws for this one was myself and my partner actually directly knowing one of the investigators – Guy Lyon Playfair from the Society for Psychical Research -of the real-life case of poltergeist-related events experienced by an ordinary, working-class family – the Hodgsons – living in a council house in Enfield… and, for me, Catherine Tate 😉

Having read a few reviews – including one by another SPR member – I wasn’t expecting to be wowed, but I was also thinking – well, for drama, things will get exaggerated or added, so, yes, it’s going to be disappointing for anyone wanting to see ‘the truth’ of what happened or be educated about the case, but it could still be a ‘good’ piece of dramatic art. However, for me, it was even worse than lacking in truth! As a fan of drama, and having written plays myself, I know you need to up the ante, show and not tell the characters and experiences in all their glory, and create dynamics between them for them to bounce off each other so to speak. Writer Paul Unwin, who spent a good few hours with Guy, being told about the case, played the recordings and shown photographs of the 11-13 year ols daughter – Janet – being involved in many of paranormal occurrences, made some odd choices for his docudrama treatment of this story, which I really would not expect from an award-winning drama writer. There was a huge amount of exposition – often around Guy – who never appeared as a character himself in the play, and yet was painted as somewhat at odds with fellow investigator Maurice Grosse – who appeared in the form of David Threlfall – and the events that had already happened prior to this one night of investigation, which Paul had limited himself to in staging the play. There’s talk about mother Peggy (Catherine Tate)’s abusive husband – all tell and no show – why not bring him in? – well instead a neighbour was brought in as a kind of love-interest, in whom Peggy was not really interested. Maurice was presented as kind of ineffectual, with all sorts of challenges as to why he was there – to which he’d always respond to help the family, and lame chat about how everybody was tired – well so were the audience, shifting around uncomfortably in their seats as though there was more poltergeist-induced drama around them, than on stage. I even felt the actors seemed bored as the ‘plot’ roamed around aimlessly in a very lacklustre fashion. In fact, when the stage finally went dark for the final time, at least one audience member asked ‘Is that it, have they finished?’

Now, it could of course be argued that we saw an early performance, and the actors haven’t really got into the swing of things yet, but I fear they may never do so. The script doesn’t really seem to give enough ‘business’ or mettle for them to get engaged with that and/or each other. Nobody really had a story arc. I did joke before going, that I hope Catherine doesn’t come out with ‘Am I bovvered? Does this face look bovvered though?’ – to the poltergeist – but that might actually have woken us up. When ghostly effects happened, nobody seemed very scared, and there was no real interaction with them. A few good special effects, but too detached from the activity – or non-activity – on stage amongst the supposedly live human beings. The performances were ok, but again, as all good actors will tell you, they are nothing without a good script. One personal aspect of Maurice’s true life story was used – as a connection between him and the case – and to kind of increase the stakes for his character, but so much more could have been done with that to make it effective drama. If you are going to twist the facts to fiction, at least make it worth it. Ella Schrey-Yeats was very good as haunted Janet Hodgson. Everyone else ok with what they were given. I’m not sure what else to say. I’m glad I’ve seen it, as knowing those for whom it was part of their life work, I was curious to do so, but I can only say I’m kind of glad Maurice and Guy are no longer around to be disappointed or upset by it.

The Enfield Haunting – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2023

Octopolis – Hampstead Theatre, Downstairs – Saturday 14th October 2023

(Rated 4/5) Octopolis is a beautiful little play jam-packed with ideas, concepts, observations, science, philosophy, psychology, religion, metaphor, emotions, detachments and attachments. It explores human-human and octopus-human relationships and the intellectual capacity and potential scope of awareness and consciousness of both animals. Could an octopus believe in God? Is it possible for octopus’ consciousness and intelligence to in fact develop beyond that of a human. And the most beautiful aspect of it for me; sixteen limbs dancing to David Bowie!

George – Jemma Redgrave – is a behavioural biologist studying Frances, the Octopus – herself in a screen at the back of the stage – who changes colour and ‘form’ according to the ‘action’ being demonstrated or to which she is responding. George has recently lost her husband – they worked together studying and interacting with Frances. Harry – Ewan Miller – invades George and Frances’ bubble together. He is an anthropologist assigned by the university to study them both. From George’s point of view, he is not welcome. Does that change? Do she and Frances come to accept him? I’ll let writer Marek Horn take over the explanation at this point as I couldn’t possibly explain it any better!: “The play follows a behavioural biologist and an anthropologist; both professional practitioners of close observation. They watch the octopus and each other, and they watch each other watch the octopus. Over the course of this watching, both George and Harry share their observations about the other with the audience and, in so doing, reveal far more about themselves than they might have intended. It is, then, a play about competing subjectivities and the illusion of objectivity. It’s about trying to remain detached and getting sucked in all the same. In this way, the characters’ emotional trajectories and their professional preoccupations feed each other.”

Another aspect of this I love, not quite mentioned by Marek, but maybe just obvious in any case, is we the audience and Frances the octopus, are also of course making our own observations and responding to the interactions on stage from our own ‘stuff’ – to use a very lay psychological term! My theatre companion and I had our own individual wishes for the outcome for the characters and observations of how they came across, which didn’t quite match up! Amusingly we’d been discussing our equally individual observations on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ partnerships earlier in the afternoon and found those didn’t always match up either. Observations are always inevitably subjective, however objective we are trying to be and I feel in something that engages our emotional and intellectual capacities, inevitably clouded by our own ‘issues’ – to use a less lay, slightly more professional psychological term 😉 (Me and my theatre companion’s issues matched when we couldn’t bring ourselves to go say ‘Hi’ to, and get a selfie with, a certain Sam Ryder – whom we saw after our lunch together - and then experienced Ryder-regret for the rest of the afternoon lol.)

Writer Marek also explains in an interview with producer Greg Ripley-Duggan, that his script started much longer (100 minutes in length in the final edit), and he had to pare it down after leaving it for a time to be able to maybe get a fresh and perhaps more objective view on it. That reminded me of a technique used in psychotherapy to freely write everything you might want to express to someone without any self-editing as you go along, and then later select what you may want to actually say to them! A way of processing and getting to the core of your ideas, loves, challenges and wishes. For some audience members, I imagine it was still a little too concept-packed, and for others, I imagine there may well be a curiosity as to what got lost in the editing process. I noticed one reviewer seems to have missed the point of the play. The human characters – at least in the outset – speak in observations on each other – using a description of the other’s actions and he/she said. I took this to be their scientific observations – again as though they were writing a paper on their ‘experiments’. This ‘reduces’ as they become more involved with each other. I thought it a brilliant use of dialogue to illustrate just one aspect of the nature of the play. Just as designer Anisha Fields uses the effects resulting from the movements or emotion or environment triggered colour changes to illustrate the presence of Frances.

Octopolis is directed by Ed Madden and also has a movement and intimacy director Angela Gasparretto. Both did a brilliant job, in the wonderfully intimate space of ‘Hampstead Downstairs’. The audience really couldn’t be any closer to the performers and that only adds to the power of the experience with them through the play.

I’ve docked a mark just because I wonder if it’s a little too heady and not enough hearty in its balance, but yet again that is of course a subjective view… and being heady and detached and maybe trying to avoid being more hearty and attached, is very important to the whole play concept and progression. Maybe my mark docking has more to do with not being able to grasp everything in one attendance of it, but that just argues for going to see it again! I would recommend going to see it at least once 😊 Octopolis – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2023

Barbie – Cineworld, Wood Green – Saturday 19th August 2023

(Rated 5/5) We finally did it; put on our pinks for Barbie's movie! I've deliberately avoided - as much as possible - seeing any reviews or information about it, and went in with no expectations, aside from Margot Robbie saying 'It's about life' - yep she managed to sneak that passed my avoidance. It's narrated by Helen Mirren - first big wow and respect. It has a vast amount of depth, and psychology, and politics, and sociology, and history, and vibrancy, and pink!! Genius directing and writing with Noah Baumbach) by Greta Gerwig! Extremely good!!! (A member of TFL staff at Turnpike Lane took our photos with the Barbie poster. At one point she said to my companion 'You're blocking Ken"... highly significant as anyone will know who's seen the film )

P.S. I was going to expand on this, but my step-daughter told me it was a ‘great review’ as it is, so leaving this as maybe the shortest one I’ve ever done! Barbie – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2023

A Strange Loop – Barbican Theatre – Saturday 5th August 2023

(Rated 5/5) I absolutely love the concept behind ‘A Strange Loop’. In fact, it is just my cup of tea, and I wish I’d had the idea myself! It is the story of Usher, who is a Broadway theatre usher and who is young, black, gay and a little tubby around the tum, and in the show, Usher is writing about Usher – theatre usher, young, black, gay, tubby – who is writing about Usher – theatre usher, etc, etc, etc, etc. You get the idea, I hope. And which came first in this strange loop, Usher, or Usher, or indeed Usher, wherever you start you get back to the origin being the destination, just like the age-old argument about the chicken and the egg. So, it’s very philosophical. It’s also very psychological. The supporting cast all play a ‘Thought’ each. For example, one thought transmits Usher’s ‘daily dose of self-loathing’, another his kind, encouraging inner self-talk, and another… there are six in total. They are like sub-personalities in a sense, and throughout the show shout ‘stuff’ (my word for issues, if you like) at him, while he is trying to make his way along internal and external paths, being obstacles or supporters in his physical, metaphorical and inner psychological journeys. At points they embody real characters in his life – his mom, dad, a potential date on a train. And of course, Usher interacts with all of them – dancing, singing and moving from concept to concept, scene to scene, as he tries to figure out what his show is all about. Of course, the thoughts and characters have their own ideas on that and again help, hinder, or even hijack his process. There’s plenty of fun, laughter, sadness and angst along the way. Various themes are explored as Usher attempts to discover who he is as he faces the difficulties of the multitude of factors about him, that would lead to conflict with culture, the church, the community, white, straight, men, women, and all other others, which may lead him to feel like an other, who does not fit! We had ‘Alternate Usher’, played by Kyle Birch. We thought he was brilliant. Such a wonderfully sensitive singer and performer. The songs in this show are lovely, poignant and catchy too. In fact, I have decided I am going to list the titles as they speak for themselves in relation to each of their focuses: ‘We Wanna Know’, ‘Inner White Girl’ (my favourite right now), ‘A Strange Loop’, ‘Intermission Song’, ‘Memory Song’, ‘Inwood Daddy’, ‘Exile in Gayville’, ‘Tyler Perry Writes Real Life’, ‘Intermission Song’, ‘Periodically’, ‘Precious Little Dream/AIDS is God’s Punishment’, ‘A Sympathetic Ear’, ‘Boundaries’ and ‘Second Wave’. As always in any musical each song contains so much of the essence of the character singing it and their story. Usher himself sings in all of them (I think!), so they tell the story of all his selves… with and without masks… in union or in conflict with the selves of others etc. I know I want to listen to them all over and over again to get everything. Perhaps I need to get a copy of the script too. That brings me to my only complaint about the show itself… American English really is a different language to English English, and at points Usher and his thoughts were talking so fast my poor little English ears couldn’t keep up or my brain didn’t understand, so I believe I missed a fair bit. Then again, I also feel it’s a show you’d need to see over and over again to get everything contained within it. It was adapted a little from the Broadway version for London audiences, as I understand it, but I reckon some things don’t quite translate anyway, which is fine. Just a consequence being elements get lost in translation, which in a way fits with the themes of the play around not being understood or accepted. In looking through the programme, I was amazed at how many producers this show has! I counted 27 of various types, including Johannes Radebe, Alan Cumming, Stephen Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw. There is also an intimacy director and drama therapist. Michael R. Jackson is responsible for the play, music, lyrics and vocal arrangements. Apparently, it all started as a monologue he wrote in drama school, and which took many years to become the show it is today. He is very clever writer in my view, and I think a legend in America. We had very front and very side seats in the circle. At first, we thought they were comfortable, but soon they turned out not to be – I did a lot of shifting myself around. But, they were ‘cheap’. The staging and production are superb though – colourful, glitzy and wild!

Yes, if you find yourself interested in the show from what I have written, I would highly recommend it. And as Johannes said, it educates as well as entertains. If not, then it simply may not be your cup of American tea 😉 A Strange Loop – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2023