Prima Facie – The Harold Pinter Theatre – Saturday 11th June 2022

 (Rated 7/5)

Jodie Comer as Tessa in ‘Prima Facie’ is easily the most powerful performance I have ever seen on stage. That is no exaggeration at all. The play, written by Suzie Miller and directed by Justin Martin is the story of a defence barrister who finds herself on the other side in more than one way after she is sexually assaulted by a colleague defence barrister.

For 100 minutes Jodie is the sole performer who narrates, plays Tessa and Tessa impersonating a multitude of other key characters using simply alterations in her physicality and voice.  She seamlessly changes tone and emotion as she hardly pauses for breath through the highly verbose and lengthy script whilst also changing her clothes, doing her make-up, turning lights and candles on and off and moving furniture around!! As we have come to expect of Jodie Comer, she explores her vast emotional range through her facial expressions and body posture and movement as she uses the entire stage, furniture and props to demonstrate to us all that is going on in the play. She takes Tessa from in control, expertly trained barrister witty and dramatic in her defence of her latest client accused of sexual assault proudly pronouncing that the legal truth is more important than any so-called actual truth to defenceless, vulnerable victim, a broken woman trying to win her case with the actual truth of her assault. For any of us it would be difficult enough to memorise the entire script but she truly performs it and gets all the business in too! Absolutely extraordinary!! A True Tour De Force

 

Prima Facie – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2022

P.S. Other Reviews:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/apr/27/prima-facie-review-jodie-comer-on-formidable-form-in-roaring-drama

 

https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/theatre/prima-facie-review-jodie-comer-harold-pinter-theatre-b996782.html

 

https://www.theweek.co.uk/arts-life/culture/theatre/956644/prima-facie-review-awards-will-follow

 

Johannes Radebe: Freedom – The Peacock Theatre – Saturday 2nd April 2022

 (Rated “It’s a Ten from Pen”)

In this Johannes Radebe’s first headlining tour he chose to share his life story so far told through the medium of dance. Using a beautifully simple colourful set changed by lighting (Designer Andrew Exeter) to take us from his place of birth – on Freedom Day 27^th April 1987 (Jojo was 7 years old when apartheid ended) – in the township of Zamdela, South Africa, via trips around the world and then settling into feeling fully at home in the Elstree studio of Strictly Come Dancing pairing John Waighte in the first all-male partnership last year.  Jojo explores how he came to feeling the freedom to fully express himself along this journey via moving to traditional South African beats, accidentally encountering the more contained ballroom dances along with their inspiring glittery costumes, transitioning to grooving along to ABBA on cruise ships, showing his ballroom and Latin skills on Dancing With The Stars South Africa and then making it all the way to the Mother Show Strictly! From his own beautiful blood Mother, being partnered with a best friend for life in ‘Auntie Cath’ Tyldesley, finding an English Mother figure in Caroline Quentin and then last year’s history-making partnership in a relationship of mutual love and respect. Jojo’s transformation from holding back to fully free is as much about the relationships along his journey. From Blood Family to Dance Family embracing all of who he is and enabling him to let that all out in full glittery glory on the dance floors of the world!

I realise I’m really struggling to write about this special experience that I had last Saturday with a really good friend and fellow Jojo fan because I am trying to do so in words! That’s impossible as the power of this performance was all about the movements, the emotions you get from the dances and the music that accompanies those dances and gives the dancers the rhythm and beats needed.

The show opens with fabulous singer Anelisa Lamola sweeping the floor as she sings and sets the scene of Jojo’s home township. The party starts with the full supporting company of dancers joining her on stage, and in time parting the way for the entrance of the beaming smiled apparition that is Johannes Radebe wearing very little more than a traditional South African headdress and loin cloth so revealing his incredibly lean yet muscular tall physique. So little of him. No wonder he couldn’t lift John Waighte haha! Though of course for John he was quite a weight to lift too! Goodness me 😉

And then we have the truly open personal touch as Jojo talks to his admiring audience about his dance and life journey. There was some heckling from what appeared to be his mainly female ‘of-a-certain-age’ (me too lol) audience expressing how much they love him and asking for the kiss of life etc! All taken in excellent humour as he playfully bantered back. Later in the interval one lady said that it was a shame he bats for the other side. I disagree. I’m beyond thrilled he is out and proud as a black gay guy realising his full potential and absolutely living his best life. It’s so beautiful to witness. He was full of gratitude for all our support in voting him to the final but no thanks needed – he gives back in spades of joy, emotional expression and supremely special dance entertainment.

More dancing, more exploration illustrates Jojo’s dance life in South Africa, through Ballroom and Latin and then later he shows us adaptations of his favourite routines from his Strictly dance life. My favourite of his dances with Cath Tyldesley is also his – The Rumba to ‘Shallow’ sung exceptionally well by Anelisa Lamola & Andile Mabhena. Adele’s ‘Hometown’ – again performed by Anelisa – also puts in an appearance hinting at Jojo&John’s Couples’ Choice as well as telling us London – as well as Zamdela – is Jojo’s hometown. (My only disappointment that none of that routine was actually danced – maybe just not possible without John.) I confess I hoped that Catherine, Caroline and John would appear though Cath is heavily pregnant with her daughter so making any dancing with or lifting her a little tricky. And maybe with being tour busy and covid Jojo sadly won’t be able to be the promised birth partner.  

All the dancers were very good though none as good as the main man 😉 Of special note Lowri Evans and Ben Rutter, both with Jojo in a fantastic Latin routine.

I am The Restricted Reviewer but actually this is the least restricted view I have ever had in any show. Right at the front row in the midst of the action. The show ended with a medley of true party numbers including ‘We Are Family’ – yes we really felt like Jojo’s Family – and up I got with many others to dance along whilst being showered in sparkly confetti and colourful streamers! In spite of disabilities - though happily much less now – I was saying to my friend “I was dancing” and she replied “Yes you really were”. So unfortunately I haven’t yet managed to become famous enough to get asked to do Strictly but I can say I have danced with my favourite Strictly dancer Mr Johannes Radebe!!

“I DANCE TO MY OWN TUNE” Proclaims Johannes Radebe as his motto for his ‘Freedom’ Tour… and Oh Yes He Does – What a Tune and What an Am-a-zing Dancer and All Round Profoundly B-e-a-utiful Human Being!

Johannes Radebe: Freedom – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2022

La Belle Sauvage – The Bridge Theatre – Saturday 12th February 2022

(Rated 4/5)

The last book I was reading before the coronavirus pandemic hit and all was still ‘normal’ was ‘The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage’ by Philip Pullman. It also happened to be the first book I was reading as we went into that first lockdown during which I finished it.

The first play I’ve now seen in our ‘new normal’ post-pandemic was ‘The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage’ adapted by Bryony Lavery from Philip Pullman’s novel at the wonderful Bridge Theatre thanks to a very good sister-from-another-mister theatre companion friend 😉 That friend is also responsible for introducing me to Philip Pullman and ‘His Dark Materials’ in the first place! And I couldn’t be more grateful to her for doing so. I’m now a massive fan and addicted to Lyra’s story – come on Philip where is the third ‘Book of Dust’ please – what were you doing in the pandemic lockdowns?! – and especially fascinated by Human-Daemon relationships and his ideas around ‘Dust’ and Consciousness, human souls, external manifestations of we humans in animal form and how he weaves topical issues impacting us all – climate change, religion, politics etc into his stories.

‘La Belle Sauvage’ is the story of how 12-year old Malcolm Polstead (Samuel Creasey in his first stage role) from the Trout Inn – his mother is the landlady - with the help of pot-girl Alice Parslow (Ella Dacres) rescue our heroin baby Lyra Belacqua (Adiya or Khalil or Paloma or Sarah or another 6-month old baby human except in the more dramatic moments when she’s a doll I believe) from floods, her dangerous parents, the Consistorial Court of Discipline of the Magisterium and other perils! And of course there are lots of adventures on the way and a kind of rites-of-passage experience for young Malcolm; not least in the development of his relationship with the initially relatively cold Alice.

Adapting the fantastic other worlds inhabited by Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon for the screen is one thing – CGI can of course play a part – but for the theatre is yet more of a challenge. And in ‘La Belle Sauvage’ you also need the ability to convince the audience you have a boat floating along the flood waters. And yes the production team managed that beautifully. The daemons in this are puppets – in a similar vein to those in ‘Warhorse’ on stage – all white with golden lights in their faces. Again all operated so well, though sadly for me something was missing there. I know Bryony had to make some big decisions in her adaptation – and the programme includes a fascinating article on adapting for the stage – but for me the most magical and psychologically interesting aspect of ‘His Dark Materials’ and ‘The Book of Dust’ is the relationships between each human and their daemon and at times interactions between deamons either in synch or in some ways in conflict. As a person develops in personality and beliefs their daemon changes until adulthood when they settle into an animal most reflective of and opposite in gender and personality to their human counterpart. Malcolm’s daemon Asta was operated and voiced by Oliva Le Andersen. As Malcolm is pre-puberty his deamon has not yet settled so Olivia was fairly frequently changing puppets – all done with ease – but for me Asta was always too separate from Malcolm – as were other daemons from their humans – to really feel that amazing interconnection you experience when reading the books.

But that is my only ‘criticism’ – and I think because I know it’s possible as you can really feel the power of emotion from the puppets in ‘Warhorse’ as well as the connection between them and the human characters – and again I understand how big choices have to be made to stage something like this incredible fantasy. Overall very impressive, well written, well produced, well performed and lovely entertainment for humans of all ages.

Do take your own deamon/spirit and imagination with you 😉

 

La Belle Sauvage – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2022

David Suchet: Poirot and More (A Retrospective) – The Harold Pinter Theatre – Saturday 8th January 2022

 

(Rated 7/5)

My first Restricted Review for three years and who better to welcome me – and in this case my dear Dad too – back to the theatre than (as of 2020) Sir David Suchet.

Though I have watched some of his Hercule Poirot performances prior to 2020, his companionship as I consumed as many of his seventy episodes as I could find was so much appreciated as easily one of the best entertainments during all the covid pandemic lockdowns of 2020 and further confinements of 2021. For me and I know for so many others including – and I think most importantly Agatha Christie’s daughter – he IS Poirot. As his stage companion and good friend Geoffrey Wansell stated as part of his introduction to the show every second someone, somewhere in the world is watching David Suchet as Hercule Poirot on their screens. How amazing is that?!

David Suchet entered stage left - or right to us but Dad will appreciate the reference as I used to enter stage left to the living-room on lockdown mornings to the accompanying sound of a creaking floor board to announce my arrival – full of beaming smiles and waving with joy to us his audience. He seemed absolutely genuinely delighted to see us all – the theatre was almost at capacity – and thanked us for our bravery in coming to the show all masked up of course so sadly he couldn’t identify anyone.

Geoffrey Wansell was a wonderful ‘guide {for} us on this journey’. It was performed initially as a kind of interview or maybe better described as two friends chatting about David’s life on stage and screen. It was all so completely natural you wouldn’t think it was planned or scripted as it clearly had been with the help of producer Liza McLean and David’s wife Sheila.

To start we were given an exploration of David’s early life and introduced to his Grandma and Mum – both performers themselves – and his Dad who was a clinician. His Grandma was his key inspiration for embarking on his life as a performer. Though his supportive companion on that journey was his Mum who attended many of his appearances on stage. David told us how during one of his first outings he had to call out ‘‘Mother, Mother’’ across to the offstage area. From the stalls he heard “I’m here, David” 😉. In later performances in other shows she would announce her presence during a quiet moment in whatever his first speech would happen to be with a little cough 😊

David also rejoiced in first encountering his wife-to-be (at that stage more seasoned than he in the profession) as she came down onto the stage to greet him a then junior actor. He was smitten straight away! And they have remained together for decades so lasting much longer than many relationships in the industry.

Poirot was naturally the main feature popping up several times throughout the show. David informed us as to how he would get into a character. To begin his beautifully demonstrated masterclass he took us back to Greek theatre and the wearing of masks. A character was at first expressed silently through body movement but then performers progressed to using their voices to im-per-sona-te i.e. inhabit their character per/though the sona/sound of the voice they choose to pass through the mask. As he gradually revealed further the precise ways of vocal expression conveys character and the meaning of the words of the writer. This brought us onto an excellent lesson in Shakespeare’s Highway Code – Iambic, Pentameter, Iambic Pentameter, Alliteration and Onomatopoeia. He showed us their use in various speeches from Shakespeare exaggerating some to highlight and clarify as he would do in rehearsals while exploring his character development. To land on consonants or not can be a question 😉 David emphasised – as indeed I’ve heard many actors do – that his acting choices are to serve the writer. And in turn it is crucial to understand how the character is needed in the play. What would happen if you took Iago out of Othello for example? Othello and Desdemona would have a honeymoon and live happily ever after. No conflict and no jealousy! No drama!! David was involved in a production of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in which he played Shylock. He and the production received complaints about antisemitism. David showed us through two speeches both the ‘dark’ sides of Shylock and the humanity in him “Hath not a jew eyes… If you cut us do we not bleed…” Here surely Shakespeare is telling his Elizabethan audience at the time and us now that we are all the same whatever creed and colour we are – a profound exposition on humanity as appears in many of his plays. There really is more than unites us than divides us.

And so shall we travel back to Cher Hercule for our grande finale?! As I had already read – also during one of our lockdowns – in ‘Poirot and Me’, David read all of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot Mysteries digesting every single detail of his character and making handwritten notes which he used to be absolutely precise in his impersonation of him as well as giving copies to all involved in the productions so they could help him maintain that accuracy. Sadly where Agatha Christie was alive to fully approve of Joan Hickson as her definitive Miss Marple, she had passed away at the time David Suchet embarked on Poirot. However her family knew other interpretations had not felt right to his creator. Agatha’s daughter told David the audience needs to laugh with but not at Poirot. David fully achieved that in his inhabitation of Hercule. Now to the piece de resistance – the fundamental aspect of character - a demonstration of going from the voice of David Suchet to that of Hercule Poirot with steps on the way incorporating first a French accent, then a twist of Belgian/Flemish and gradually going up from stomach via ribs (he could feel it there and still not right) to neck, behind the eyes (where the voice was “out there” rather than within the body) and finally reaching the little grey cells where Hercule resides! We could hear each subtle difference in sona along the way perfectly. I was in floods of tears by the end and so wished I'd been naughty and recorded it!! I did not but here is a more compressed version: https://youtu.be/MZJpGq6W1bw

Et Voila Poirot within Suchet smiles with arms outstretched on stage as behind him we see Poirot in the same pose and in full costume outside Agatha Christie’s Hatfield House.

Magnifique!!

 

David Suchet: Poirot and More – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2022

Introduction to The Restricted Review

Hi! I am the Restricted Reviewer.
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'Curtains' - Wyndham's Theatre - Saturday 21st December 2019

(Rated 5/5 ) 

'Curtains' is a wonderfully sparkling fun murder mystery musical comedy, which incorporates elements of vaudeville, musical drama, comedy, farce, Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, spoof, play within a play and even a play within that! There's excellent song compositions with such poignant lyrics and catchy musical tunes as well as emotive subtext giving us powerful psychodrama between its characters in addition to skilful comedic turns. 

The show opens in 1959 Boston, Massachusetts on opening night of the play within a play etc, as the cast perform a wild west number for their production of 'Robbin Hood of the Old West' and their star Jessica Cranshaw (puts you in mind of Jessica Fletcher of 'Murder She Wrote') is murdered at curtain call. Enter Lieutenant Frank Cioffi - played for this set of performances by stand-up comic Jason Manford. His character is a fan of musical theatre and as he investigates what then become a series of murders - do they have a serial killer on their hands?! - gradually develops into the role of director and even producer. Will he raise the show's success and maybe even find love? We have a whodunnit as good as the best crime writers may produce with a detective getting to play a variety of the greatest fictional sleuths (hints of Poirot, Morse, David Tennant in 'Broadchurch' et al) and sing and dance onto the bargain. His dream come true!

The original concept is by Peter Stone with music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb - the latter pairing that gave us 'Chicago' and 'Cabaret'. Sadly during the writing of this show, Ebb passed away, leaving Kander to finish and write for them both. My personal favourite number is 'I Miss the Music' as performed here by Andy Coxon as Aaron, in which he sings about struggling to produce music without his writing partner Georgia - played by Carley Stenson - Oh, how life imitates art! 

We are given the classic set of characters you'd find on stage - divas, handsome leading men, rival performers craving the starring role, backstage support and stabbers!, those engaged in love trysts, a tough apparently unempathic producer Carmen Bernstein (Rebecca Lock) and her daughter the ingenue - Emma Caffrey as Bambi Bernet. Carmen comes across as fiercely critical of Bambi but what is really going on behind the scenes? Well actually so much! This piece works on so many levels and has far greater depth than might immediately meet the eye or even heart!

Highly entertaining as well as highly emotive with superb performances by all. 

Curtains – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2019

‘Company’ – Guilgud Theatre – Saturday 22nd December 2018

(Rated 7/5 ) 

This was such a refreshingly fun and effervescent surprise. A re-imagined version of the original 1970 musical play by Stephen Sondheim – in this production directed by Marianne Elliot, the central singleton male Robert becomes female Bobbie, played beautifully by Rosalie Craig. It is Bobbie’s 35^th birthday, and in a series of dream-like sequences – which would be very much at home in Alice’s Wonderland if set in New York – we witness her struggles in and out of relationships. She is the best friend and support to five couples, who exhibit different kinds of relationship. Mel Giedroyc and Gavin Spokes play a couple in perpetual combat be it verbally or physically. Patti LuPone, whom I first saw as Fantine in ‘Les Miserables’ is the multi-married lady-who-lunches and drinks cocktails – happy to share her latest husband with Bobbie. Other couples experiment with drugs and discover divorce does a great deal for their love-life. And my favourites are the gay male couple, who have been together for a long-time, but faced with marriage and commitment Jonathan Bailey’s character is terrified.

It is a light-hearted exploration of life and love, yet also with deep profound messages. As one song performed by the men in couples expresses ‘You’re scared she’s starting to drift away – and scared she’ll stay’. The performances are wonderful. The staging supports extremely well with Bobbie travelling between relationship scenes through doors and hatches in constantly moving and changing scenery. There is also a sense of her being trapped by the walls and yet longing to be free – reflecting the same struggles in her decision to become one of a couple or not – yet she loves company.

Rosalie Craig’s expression is delightfully sensitive and warm. She shows so much empathy and understanding to all with whom she interacts. No wonder they all love her and are so concerned for her wellbeing.

In such challenging times this is well-needed entertainment, which takes us back to the basics of what really matters in life – our relationships – of whatever kind – with others – and how being kind matters so much!

Company – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2018