A Decade of Drama 2010-19

Looking back over the past ten years and I know I've seen many many dramas at the theatre in London and elsewhere, I've seen many plays by Shakespeare performed in lots of different ways and styles and I could easily come up with a top ten Shakespeare plays alone. But that wouldn't be representative of the range of plays I've seen over the decade. So here they are, the plays that have stuck in my head for one reason or another.

Shirley Valentine @ Menier Chocolate Factory 2010

I'd seen the film but not seen the play, which was in rep with 'Educating Rita', but it was Meera Syal I wanted to see and she was Shirley. Alone on the stage talking to the audience about her life and the little sadnesses, the ordinariness of it all, you could've heard a pin drop. There were lots of laughs too and, even though I'd seen Meera in lots of things before, this is the performance that told me she was a great actress as well as comedian and writer. Heartbreaking and joyful in turns, she brought Shirley to life in front of us.

Jerusalem @ the Apollo Theatre 2011

I didn't see 'Jerusalem' on it's first run so I was pleased to see it when it was revived for a short season in 2011. It's a small tale with huge themes, extremely well written with some beautiful poetry in there and the performance and production was excellent. Mark Rylance played Johnny Byron, a teller of tales and mischief maker, a petty drugs dealer and a trouble for the local community but I believed he met the giant who built Stone Henge and I believed the giant would come when Johnny got into trouble. Sadly, the curtain closed before the giant appeared but he was there. A great play demonstrating the magic and wonder that theatre can evoke.

Much Ado About Nothing 2012

That Meera Syal again, this time as Beatrice in the Royal Shakespeare Company's 'Much Ado'. Before seeing this production I'd have said Zoe Wanamaker was the best Beatrice (seen at the National a few years earlier) but Meera topped Zoe in the Beatrice chart. It was staged as an Indian play set in a typical Indian compound as part of the World Shakespeare Festival and the London 2012 Festival in support of the Olympics. This is the production that actually had me laughing at a Shakespeare play, at a comedy no less (and I never laugh at Shakespeare comedies). The colour, the movement, the use of the auditorium as an extension of the stage, the excellent and subtle lighting, it all worked. I loved it.

Julius Caesar @ Shakespeare's Globe 2014

In 2014 the Globe put on Shakespeare's Roman plays over it's summer season - 'Titus Andronicus', 'Anthony & Cleopatra' and 'Julius Caesar' - what a great season that was. I'd never read the text or seen the play and I was astonished at how many phrases from it are still everyday sayings in the English language and his many speeches I knew. What a gift Shakespeare gave us with this play and what a great production this was, I sat watching as my jaw dropped time and again at the beauty and cleverness of the writing and the fantastic delivery by actors who knew how to speak in Shakespeare's verse. I left the theatre with the text in my hand, bought from the shop in the interval.

My Night With Reg @ Donmar Warehouse 2014

Ah yes, Reg, the man we never see but is rarely far from the thoughts and speech of the characters in the play. It's a serious comedy - serious themes about AIDS in the '80s and friends gradually dying through the play but with some enormous laugh out loud moments. There's love and lust, joy and tears, Julian Ovenden got naked and Geoffrey Streatfield went down on a tree (not really). It was great fun tinged with sadness and is rightly considered Elyot's best work. It transferred to the West End the following year and I saw it again on a bigger stage at the Apollo.

The Winter's Tale @ the Garrick Theatre 2015

Kenneth Branagh took over the Garrick for a year to put on a series of plays and the one that sticks in my memory was 'The Winter's Tale', yes, another Shakespeare play. I've seen a few productions of this play over the years, including the Royal Ballet's beautiful ballet of the play, but this is the one that sticks in my mind. It opens at Christmas time with a big tree and presents, which, given it's name, is quite right. Branagh gave himself the role of King Leontes and Judi Dench played brave Paulina and they worked really well together. It's not one of my favourite plays (why on earth would Hermione go back to Leontes?) but this was a worthy production.

Richard III @ the Almeida Theatre 2016

I'm not a great fan of Shakespeare's history plays about long-dead kings and family rivalries but this production of 'Richard III' stands out from the others. The last version of the play I'd seen had Kevin Spacey as some kind of steam punk Richard, but Ralph Fiennes Richard was far more chilling and scary, never knowing when he might explode in your face and that kept me on the edge of my seat. What's he going to do next? Vanessa Redgrave was also in the production but I kept worrying about how she'd manage the steps at her age ...  I think I can give 'Richard III' a break for a few years having seen this production.

Angels in America @ National Theatre 2017

'Angels' was an astonishing theatrical event in two parts over different nights, over six hours of the play and it never got dull. I'd never seen the film so didn't really know what it was about other than it's set in New York in the '80s when the AIDS crisis raged. We see hallucinations brought to life as a result of the disease and the drugs, we see an angel with astonishing wings and we see a group of friends just trying to live their lives and find love. The run quickly sold out but I was lucky enough to win a ballot to get extra tickets later in the run and got to see both parts a second time and it was no less powerful the second time around. Andrew Garfield and James McArdle were excellent, as were all the small ensemble cast.

The Ferryman @ The Gielgud Theatre 2017

Another great play from Jez Butterworth who wrote 'Jerusalem', this time set in a family farmhouse in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The play progresses and we learn about the extended family in the farmhouse, the little secrets all families have, then the wider links into the community and the links with the IRA. It's very well constructed and, as with 'Jerusalem' there are some moments of beautiful poetry. A great cast with some very sweary children led by Paddy Considine, a lovely set (I worried about characters falling down the steep stairs) and some clever lighting.

Anthony & Cleopatra @ National Theatre 2018

One of my favourite Shakespeare plays with some gorgeous poetry and I still regret not seeing Vanessa Redgrave play Cleopatra in the '80s. I've seen a few productions but none have been all that satisfying until this version. Anthony in loud Hawaiian shirts? Sun loungers around the pool in Cleopatra's palace? the National using the turntable under the Olivier stage every other scene. Um, OK, it had it's oddnesses but it's the acting that matters and that was fantastic. Sophie Okonedo was the best as Cleopatra, easily matching Ralph Fiennes as Anthony and Georgia Landers as the loyal Iras. And Sophie delivered Cleopatra's dying speech just right, a mighty queen to the end. I'd happily see this production again.

The Inheritance @ Noel Coward Theatre 2018

Only a year after 'Angels in America' we saw another two part play over two nights, another six hours plus telling a gay story but this time set right up to date with talk of the last USA presidential election, the death sentence of AIDS far behind them all but its shadow still falling heavily over a group of young friends in New York. There are similarities with 'Angels' but they are very different plays, both powerful in their own right. At one point, the older man is in an argument with the youngsters and angrily shouts out 'There are no gay men my age! Or not as many as there should be...' which totally shocked a silent audience with it's truthfulness and silenced the stage. The staging was minimal,a  lot suggested by the lighting and the ensemble coming and going contributing their tales and the story develops. We even get a cameo from Vanessa Redgrave late in the second part of the play. It was a very powerful play.

 Lady Windermere's Fan @ the Vaudeville Theatre 2018

The Vaudeville Theatre was taken over for a year to put on performances of work by Oscar Wilde, largely his plays but also a monologue of 'De Profundis' by Simon Callow and a new musical version of 'The Happy Prince'. My favourite was 'Lady Windermere's Fan' directed by Kathy Burke, the usual tale of mistaken identities, young love, bourgeoise morality and sheer daftness. Jennifer Saunders was excellent and did a special 'turn' at the end of the interval with the actors playing the servants in the play all playing musical instruments as she gave us a song standing in front of the curtain. Great fun and such a good idea to have a year of Wilde.

A German Life @ the Bridge Theatre 2019

Coming right up to date was a one-woman play starring Dame Maggie Smith. Brunhild is in an old folks home remembering her youth when she was a typist for the nazi party in Berlin in the '30s and during the war. She goes to great lengths to distance herself from the horrors - she didn't know anything, she was almost forced to go to rallies, yes she loved the Goebell's children, and so forth, but none of it was anything to do with her. Maggie Smith's performance was astonishing, a frail old lady remembering the the joys and sadnesses of her youth but set against such a backdrop. I'm so pleased I saw that performance.

I've found it interesting doing this bloggie and seeing which are the plays that have stood out for me. Two starring Meera Syal, two written by Jez Butterworth, five by Shakespeare, two six-hour gay plays,  two with Ralph Fiennes, two with Vanessa Redgrave... my, it's a small world. I wanted to include Glenda Jackson's 'King Lear' when she acted everyone else off the stage, a vicious Imelda Staunton in 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf', Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus' at the Globe with Arthur Darvil as Mephistopheles and Jenna Russell in 'Di and Viv and Rose' a show that ended prematurely in 2015 but I loved it. But no, you can't always include everything. It makes the above selection stand out even more.

All in all, that was a good decade for new plays and for revivals of old plays and classics. Wonder what the next decade will bring...?

'Shakespeare in Ten Acts' at the British Library

I went to see the Shakespeare exhibition at the British Library the other day, 'Shakespeare in Ten Acts'. It's based around ten performances of Shakespeare plays that changed the way they were viewed or that changed the history of the plays in some way. It's a novel approach and there was some fascinating stuff there but it was a bit underwhelming. Darkened rooms with everything spotlit seemed a bit, well, odd. The exhibition was book and paper-based which I expected (well, it's in a library after all) with some of the later rooms using video of performances or costumes.

The first exhibit is, of course, one of the prides of the Library - its copy of the First Folio in a glass case opened at the title page with the portrait of William himself. Beside it is a note that says Ben Johnson certified the pen and ink portrait as a true likeness. Mr Johnson's plays don't seem to be performed very often these days.

It wasn't so much the theme of the exhibition that caught me, it was some of the objects on display and their historic significance. Such as this little book that contains the prologue specially written when a woman first took to the stage in a production of a Shakespeare play, in this case 'Othello' in 1660. The first woman is thought to have been Anne Marshall. Can you imagine a time when women weren't legally allowed on the stage and the female roles were taken by boys? How odd is that.

The rest of this room went on to show portraits of some of the women who took to the stage with potted histories of their lives. There were also extracts from newspapers that raised against the new-found habit of men buying tickets back stage to watch the new actresses get dressed!

Another book to grab my attention was a small copy of 'Hamlet' thats' been passed from actor to actor in the 20th Century who've played the role. It's signed by some of the actors including Michael Redgrave, Peter O'Toole and Derek Jacobi. The sign notes that the book is passed on to note particularly celebrated performances. Jacobi passed it to Kenneth Branagh when he did his film version of 'Hamlet' in the '90s. Now, that's what I call a great gift. I've not seen Branagh's film but I did see Derek Jacobi play 'Hamlet' back in 1978 so that made me smile. I wonder who Branagh will give it to to continue the tradition?

One of the odder exhibits was Vivien Leigh's dress from her performance of Lady Macbeth. It's a nice enough frock but it was odd since the main poster for the exhibition shows her all gossamer and fairy as Titania from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' but that frock isn't there.

And finally, here is a large red and white handkerchief that I coveted - I like the man bottom-right with the legend 'Ha! Ha! Hah! In places', presumably noting the potential response to one of the comedies.

The Plastic Bag Awards 2015

It's that time of year again, it's time for the Plastic Bag Awards 2015, affectionately known as the Baggies! The nominations have been scrutinised, the judging panel have locked themselves away in a room for a couple of day to argue the case for one nominee above another and have finally been released with unanimous decisions.

Ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, I give you … the Baggies 2015!

Best Theatre - Shakespeare

As we enter the 400th anniversary of the death of Mr Shakespeare then this award has slightly more poignancy that normal. I saw quite a few Shakespeare productions in 2015, including the long-awaited Benedict Cumberbatch version of 'Hamlet'. As ever in recent years, there were a goodly few visits to Shakespeare's Globe for some open-air theatre over the summer as well as sundry productions in more normal theatres. The nominations are:

'Romeo & Juliet' @ The Globe
'The Merchant of Venice' @ The Globe
'Measure for Measure' @ The Globe
'As You Like It' @ the National Theatre
'The Winter's Tale' @ The Garrick Theatre

The winner is the last Shakespeare production I saw over the year, the new Kenneth Branagh company production of 'The Winter's Tale' which is the best production of that play that I've yet seen. It gained double points for being set at Christmas with snow outside and a Christmas Tree inside. Judi Dench was superb.

Best Theatre - Drama

I saw a lot of plays in 2015 and most would fall into this category. I saw a great version of 'Not I' in the Beckett festival at the Barbican over the summer and a touching 'Our Country's Good' at the National but I'm afraid both were pipped at the post. The nominees are:

'Di and Viv and Rose' @ the Vaudeville Theatre
'The Motherfucker With The Hat' @ the National Theatre
'The Oresteia' @ The Globe
'Stevie' @ Hampstead Theatre
'Mr Foote's Other Leg' @ Hampstead Theatre

There were some great productions this year and included some very pleasant surprises like 'The Mofo in the Hat' and 'Stevie' but the Baggy must go to 'Mr Foote's Other Leg' with Simon Russell Beale and Dervla Kirwan, a great script and a great production.

Best Theatre - Musical

It's been a funny year for the musical - the West End is still full of them but where are the new musicals coming through? We need some new smash hits, I think, and I'm hoping that 'Kinky Boots' will rise to the challenge. The nominees are:

'Beautiful' @ the Aldwych Theatre
'Grand Hotel' @ Southwark Playhouse
'Kinky Boots' @ the Adelphi Theatre
'Guys and Dolls' @ the Savoy Theatre
'Xanadu' @ Southwark Theatre

The winner is probably inevitable judging from the number of times I went back to see it on its short run at Southwark - the masterpiece that is 'Grand Hotel'! The great cast led by Scott Garnham as the Baron and Christine Gimandi as Grushinskaya. Well done people!

Best Entertainment

As you all know by now, an 'entertainment' is anything that isn't a proper play or musical and includes a wide variety of productions, from staged talks to one-off events and song cycles. The nominees are:

'Sweeney Todd' @ the Coliseum
'An Evening with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer' @ Hackney Empire
Tracey Thorn @ Waterstone's, Piccadilly
'Songs for a New World' @ St James's Theatre
'La Soiree' on the Southbank

The winner is 'Songs for a New World' party because it was completely new for me and something to discover and largely because of Cynthia Erivo who is currently making it big on Broadway.

Best Film

I didn't see many new films in 2015 but saw a few old films in new prints, cleaned up and re-presented. The nominees are:

'Travels With My Aunt' @ the British Film Institute
'Into The Woods' @ Brixton Ritzy
'Wild Tales' @ Curzon Victoria
'Brief Encounter @ the British Film Institute
'Gone With The Wind' @ the British Film Institute

In a surprise to myself, the winner of 'Best Film' is 'Brief Encounter' with it's terribly British accents and acting. It's a timeless love story that I've seen before on TV but seeing it on the big screen was a very different experience. Well done to Celia and Trevor, our immortal lovers.

Best Gig

2015 was a year of few gigs but they were all really good and mainly old favourites rather than new people. The nominees are:

Buffy Sainte-Marie @ the O2 Brooklyn Bowl
Amanda Palmer @ Union Chapel
Culture Club @ Hammersmith
Madonna @ the O2
Kim Wilde's Christmas Party @ the Coronet

The winner is Buffy Sainte-Marie at Brooklyn Bowl at the O2. I'd seen Buffy earlier in the year at the Tabernacle but the Brooklyn Bowl gig was spectacular in more ways than one: the new album was released by then so we had some great live versions of the songs, there was a fabulous light show, the sound was excellent and there was a definite good vibe surrounding the place. Well done Buffy!

Best Live Performance

This category is for a single performance on a stage, whether it's at a gig or in a musical, it's the performance that matters. The nominees are:

'Roses at the Station' by Scott Garnham in 'Grand Hotel'
'Stars & the Moon' by Jenna Russell in 'Songs for a New World'
'Power In The Blood' by Buffy Sainte-Marie @ Brooklyn Bowl
'Rebel Heart' by Madonna @ the O2
'Kids In America' by Kim Wilde @ the Coronet

There were some great performances this year but the winner is Jenna Russell's touching song about growth and love from 'Songs for a New World'. She gave different performances in that show to reflect the mood and the song but her wistful love song wins the day. Well done Jenna!

Best Exhibition

2015 was a year of some great exhibitions and the Goya portraits and 'Defining Beauty' Greek statues exhibitions narrowly missed the nominations, which are:

'Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends' @ the National Portrait Gallery
'Inventing Impressionism' @ the National Gallery
'Grayson Perry - Who Are You?' @ the National Portrait Gallery
'Sonia Delaunay' @ Tate Modern
Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun at Le Grand Palais, Paris

The winner is Sonia Delaunay with her wonderfully colourful works that made me gasp with wonder and shed a tear at the beauty of her paintings.

Best Book

A variety of books were explored this year, fiction, non-fiction and autobiography and the nominees are:

'Naked at the Albert Hall' by Tracey Thorn
'Anger is an Energy' by John Lydon
'The Shepherd's Crown' by Terry Pratchett
'The Ocean at the End of the Lane' by Neil Gaiman
'Black by Design' by Pauline Black

The winner is John Lydon for his brutally honest autobiography, 'Anger is an Energy' in which he tackles some very difficult experiences head on. We get Johnny Rotten and John Lydon - two for the price of one. Well done John!

Best Dance

This is a new category for 2015 when I discovered the joys of dance. The nominees are:

'Woolf Works' by the Royal Ballet @ Royal Opera House
'Triple Bill' by Birmingham Royal Ballet @ Sadler's Wells
'Romeo & Juliet' by the Royal Ballet @ Royal Opera House
'Nutcracker' by the Royal Ballet @ Royal Opera House
'Sleeping Beauty' by Matthew Bourne's New Adventures @ Sadler's Wells

'Woolf Works' was the catalyst that made me want to explore ballet so hats off to that production, but it was 'Romeo & Juliet' that made me fall in love with ballet and that production by the Royal Ballet is the winner. The athleticism, the dancing, the staging and costumes all brought this classic tale to life and captured my imagination. And made me want to see more. Luckily the production is captured on DVD and, even luckier, I have it. Well done Royal Ballet!

And there you have them - the Baggies 2015! All the nominees should be pleased with themselves for making the final cut and, while not everyone can be a winner, simply being nominated is an honour and tribute.  2016 is a new year so let's see what it brings...

Branagh at The Garrick

Kenneth Branagh's season at the Garrick has begun with a marvellous production of 'The Winter's Tale' with a separate Terence Rattigan's double bill of 'Harlequinade' and 'All On Her Own'.

'All On Her Own' is a short, solo play with the wife of a newly dead man wondering whether his death was actually suicide and going through the guilt she can't help but feel. Zoe Wanamaker took the part of the smart wife with a drink in her hand as she wonders about her late husband's last hours. Did he not go to bed deliberately so he could swallow too many pills with whisky or was it an accident? We'll never know.

More fun was 'Harlequinade' about a repertory theatre company playing an opening night in some small town somewhere. They've been on the road for so long with so many productions that it's all a bit of a blur but in this one we have Branagh as the company manager and lead actor playing Romeo despite his age (I loved the reveal of whipping off the very convincing wig!). It's a farce of ludicrous proportions and is a bit of light relief that had some of the older members of the audience guffawing every now and then (not sure what at, though). Mistaken identities, theatrical in-jokes, everything you could think of except falling down trousers, it's all in there. I enjoyed it for what it was and Zoe Wanamaker played the part of the rather tipsy nurse.

The production of 'The Winter's Tale' was altogether in a different league (quite probably due to the writing, of course). This is one of Shakespeare's odd plays in which jealousy emerges out of the blue and wrecks a marriage, no sign of it until it's there and that makes me wonder at where that central motif came from. Leontes, king of Sicily, is entertaining his friend the king of Bohemia when he grows jealous of his relationship with Leontes' pregnant wife, Hermione. And that's where the problems begin. It's set at Christmas with the giving of presents, ice skating and everything festive you'd get up to in Sicily. I always think the kingdoms should be swapped round, with Bohemia being the winter kingdom, not Sicily.

Jealousy is the ending of the marriage and Hermione dies in childbirth and Leontes banishes the child since he can't believe it is his. The child, of course, survives and grows up to be a beautiful young women who, coincidentally, falls in love with Bohemian king's son. Queue complications and a rather long rustic scene. I've never been a fan of Shakespeare's rustic scenes but these seemed really quite sweet and delightful compared to previous productions I've seen, with the love of the young people coming through as the driving force.

They eventually go to Sicily to marry and find themselves in Leontes' court when it's revealed that Hermione didn't actually die all those years ago, but has been alive as a statue all this time, cared for by Paulina, a senior courtier. There's no explanation of this phenomenon or why she might want to get together with Leontes again but it works, particularly the big reveal with everyone now having grey hair to show the moving of the years.

It's not the most satisfying of Shakespeare's plays but I really liked this production and there's a great partnership between Kenneth Branagh as Leontes and Judi Dench as Paulina. I loved the set that placed the play at Christmas in an opulent and red-plush Edwardian court with people swapping presents and playing out the Christmas spirit, including going ice skating. There was even a big Christmas Tree and the supporting cast came to the stage through the audience blowing horns and singing. It was a great start.

I think the production is going to be screened in cinemas so if you get the chance I'd urge you to see it - it's worth it, believe me.