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...?

'Vienna 1934 - Munich 1938' at the Rose Theatre, Kingston

On Saturday we went to see the third and final performance of a play written and directed by Vanessa Redgrave at the Rose Theatre in Kingston. It was billed as 'a work in progress' so we knew this wasn't finished product by any means, it was an acted reading to try out the piece in front of an audience. Vanessa came on at the start to begin chatting to the audience, introduce the piece and give us some background to it, to the family friends featured in the work and some of her own memories of the war when she was a child.

The play's theme is the rise of fascism in Europe and the nazis in Germany in particular. There's a lot going on in the play - and I think that is one of it's problems, it needs to be simplified - but I thought of act one as being about Stephen Spender, act two about her dad Michael Redgrave being gay, and act three showing how fascism spread to Italy and a long speech delivered by Thomas Mann after he left Germany (her dad was a fan of Mann).

Although it didn't really hang together as a play there were some fascinating insights into the characters and the thinking at the time. It was all based on journals, news reports, diaries and autobiographies of the people involved, often with personal photos of them projected on the back of the stage. This is clearly a labour of love and Vanessa has put a lot of work into it.

In the evening there was an interview with Vanessa and a Q&A which we also attended and it was lovely to just hear her talk and reminisce. At one point there was a short film about her from the late '60s/early '70s showing us radical firebrand Vanessa marching under banners, being chased by the police and with Tariq Ali. It was an extract from a film her husband pulled together for her 80th birthday. The most pertinent piece of the segment was when she went up to receive her Oscar in 1978 and she reiterated her dedication to fighting anti-semitism and fascism. That's what the play had been all about. All these years later and she's true to her word. Well done Vanessa,

'The Inheritance' at the Noel Coward Theatre

'The Inheritance' is a new play in two parts by Matthew Lopez set in present day New York and which plays for over three hours each. That's a lot of play. It immediately draws comparisons with 'Angels In America' which is of similar length and, while the subject is broadly the same (the lives of young gay men) it's very different. I first heard about it a couple of years ago during a discussion panel that included Stephen Daldry (the director of the play) after a staged reading of 'Bent' at the National Theatre.

We had tickets to see it at the Young Vic on its original run but were there the night the electricity went off for some reason so were given tickets to see it on its West End transfer to the Noel Coward Theatre on St Martin's Lane. It's a bit of a marathon but it doesn't feel that long since it's so engaging and I'm so pleased to finally see it.

It's an epic tale - as it would be at over six hours - of Eric and Toby and the ups and downs of their lives. Long-term lovers, they live together in a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan surrounded by good friends in a safe middle-class life. Eric works for a right on social enterprise and Toby is a writer whose first book is picked up as a play and their friend Adam is picked to play the lead on stage. Toby wants to sleep with rich-boy Adam and the relationship with Eric is wrecked. In the meantime, Eric has become good platonic friends with Walter, an older man and partner to rich Henry, who has an apartment upstairs in the building. And Toby finds down and out rent-boy Leo, who  looks like Adam and has a thirst for books and education.

Of course, it's not that straight forward and the play opens with a creative writing class with the group of friends all wondering how to start their novels. Luckily, EM Forster appears as their guide and inspiration and narrator of the first half of the play. Coincidentally, he's also Walter who has a house out in upstate New York where he helped young men with the HIV virus in the 'plague' years. There are lots of references to the 'plague' of the '80s and '90s, a time before the group of friends knew about it and understood the consequences.

There's a lot going on in this play which is deliberately modelled on EM Forster's 'Howard's End' and 'Maurice' while telling the story of modern day gay young men in the present time. The men are all middle class with good jobs and worthy politics, some married and a couple adopting a child, something unimaginable to the previous generation in the 'plague' years. Their freedom has come at a cost. In an angry exchange between Henry, the older man who wants to marry Eric, and the youngsters he shouts 'There are no gay men my age ... or not as many as there should be'  to throw the realty of his life at them, a life in which he might be rich but he's also a survivor of the 'plague'.

The only woman in the play is Margaret who's son died of HIV in the '80s at Walter's house and she's helped Walter look after his young proteges ever since, burying their ashes in the private grave yard in a grove of trees around his house. By the end of the play Leo has contracted HIV and Eric takes him to the house to wean him off drugs and sex work and help him recover and they meet Margaret who looks after the house.You could've heard a pin drop during the scene where Margaret tells Leo about holding her son's hand while he died in that house. That's class acting.

There are lots of scenes to pick out and say 'look at this' and 'this' and 'this' but that would spoil the play for you seeing it. It's a strange play in a way, with the characters narrating what's going on as well as acting it out and I think that's one of the strengths of the play, that it plays with the form rather than following it. There are also some very engaging performances with Kyle Soller and Andrew Burlap as Eric and Toby, Samuel H Levine as Adam/Leo, and Paul Hilton and John Benjamin Hickey as Walter and Henry. Vanessa Redgrave played Margaret. The play is directed by Stephen Daldry who was in the audience on both nights I attended and the writer, Matthew Lopez, was there when I saw part two of the play.

I liked the virtually empty set with a custom-built stage that raised or lowered depending on the scene, and I loved the cherry tree that appears from time to time. The lighting was excellent, sometimes crystal clear and sometimes warm and sultry. All told, it's a great production.

The audience was predominantly male, either in their '50s/'60s or '30s with the younger tending to be in groups. There was also a group of women in their '60s to make me feel embarrassed on their behalf with the talk of orgies. There's a lot of talk of explicit sex in the play and why not? it's part of life, after all. There's also talk about the recent American election and Trump to bring it slap bang up to date. Part of me wondered what the younger section of the audience really thought and understood about the 'plague' and everything that was going on back then.

This is a very good play with a great ensemble cast. I'm very pleased to have seen it and you should get tickets as soon as you can.

'Poems That Make Grown Women Cry' at the National Theatre

On Friday afternoon the National Theatre hosted a small event in the Olivier Theatre before that evening's performance of 'As You Like It' (I still hate the ugly opening set). A new collection of poetry has just been published called 'Poems That Make Grown Women Cry' and, for 45 minutes, we'd hear some of the women who chose the poems in the book read them and talk for a few minutes about them.

The event was introduced by Kate Mosse and, after remarks from Anthony and Ben Holden (who edited the book), featured:

Edna O'Brien (first up and looking very glam and sparkly)
Jude Kelly
Maureen Lipman
Imtiaz Dharker (who has featured in 'Poems on the Underground' and I wrote about her poem 'Carving'  a few years ago)
Mariella Frostrup (reading a lovely Yeats poem)
Juliet Stevenson (looking very posh)
Elif Shafak
Vanessa Redgrave (reading Wilfred Owen)

The event was closed by Kate Allen, a director of Amnesty International that jointly published the book. She spoke about Chelsea Manning, an American soldier serving 35 years in prison for whistleblowing who wanted to contribute to the book but couldn't.

It was a lovely way to spend a Friday early evening, hearing the women who chose the poems read them aloud and explain what they meant to them. It was short and sweet and it was quite strange to be leaving the National just as most people were arriving for that evenings performances.

I got the book on the way out and was pleased see an array of other women who had contributed to the book, including Yoko Ono, Meera Syal, Olivia Coleman, Mary Beard, Julie Christie, Annie Lennox, Joanna Lumley and Bianca Jagger (who we saw in the foyer). Miriam Margolyes was also in the foyer but as a patron (it looked like she was going to see Ma Rainey's Black Bottom').

I shall enjoy exploring this book.

'The Thirteenth Tale' at the British Film Institute

Last week I went to an early screening of a new film to be shown on BBC2 over Christmas called 'The Thirteenth Tale'. It stars Vanessa Redgrave and Olivia Colman in a flashback-fest as Vanessa recounts her past to the present day biographer played by Olivia. The screenplay was written by Christopher Hampton based on the book by Diane Setterfield. It's a ghost story for Christmas ... or is it?

I won't spoil it for you but there are lots of twists and turns in the tale, set in a Yorkshire mansion in which twins grow up amid incest, madness and death. There was a Q&A after the screening with Christopher Hampton, James Kent (director) and Olivia Colman which was quite entertaining. The less entertaining bit was members of the cast taking photos of the screen on their phones and whooping at the drop of a hat - um, you might have got in for free but the rest of us paid, thank you!

Un-noted Theatre (aka What do I say?)

I've been to a number of theatrical productions in the last six months that I didn't really know what to say about them. Not that they were necessarily bad, just that I was a bit lost.

'The Winslow Boy' at The Old Vic

I wasn't desperately keen to see this despite the great reviews but had to go. I've seen the film (or at least most of the film) which was a Sunday afternoon staple in the '70s so I was familiar with the tale of the father and his pride and honour. This was always about the father, not the boy who stole a postal order while at military college - or did he? There was some excellent acting in this production but the bottom line was that I didn't really care if the lad was a thief or not. I suspect I should have.

Henry Goodman was excellent as Mr Winslow, starting off a vigorous middle-aged man and ending in a wheelchair worn out my the trials and tribulations of the case. I was most impressed by Naomi Frederick as the suffragette sister with hints of politics in her future.

'Othello' at The National Theatre

I was really looking forward to this production (which is still running at the time of writing) with Adrian Lester and Rory Kineer in the leads as Othello and Iago. I saw a great production of the play in 2011 with Clarke Peters and Dominic West and, I suppose, I was expecting an improved version of that production. And I felt let down by the 2013 version of a military camp in Iraq or Afghanistan with Ikea-type build it yourself furniture.

My problems with the production started early on - why would a women in stretch jeans talk about her husband 'owning' her and why on earth would this be discussed with the elders of Venice? The number of unlikelies just kept mounting up until Desdemona is murdered in her panties in a plywood bed. Like yeah? I don't think so. And that is what I found disappointing about the production.

The play just didn't work for me I'm afraid. Adrian Lester has probably been waiting for the right time to play Othello (it's inevitable really) for a long time and the chance to play with Rory must be perfect but it didn't work for me.

'The Bodyguard' at The Adelphi Theatre

I'm not a fan of Whitney or of 'The Bodyguard' (I've never seen the film all the way through) but when Beverley Knight joined the cast as the female lead then that changed everything. I was introduced to Beverley ten years ago with 'Affirmation' and she was my favourite at the Paralympics 2012 ceremony singing 'I Am What I Am'.

The play started off OK, introducing the characters and giving them the right motivations for whatever was going to happen - the diva, the overlooked sister, the reluctant hero, etc - and I think that's where it all started to go wrong for me. It was rather clinical and unfeeling. It was almost as if every sign of story (I won't say plot) was whittled down to move on with another song - get the acting over with and start another song.  As I commented at half time, there was a lot of wood on that stage.

It's a great vehicle for Bev though and shows off her great voice. The stage came alight when she opened her mouth to let rip with another song, it's just a shame that the production didn't match her high calibre. At one point Beverley sings with her 'sister' and that is such a bad move - the 'sister' has a great voice for a stage musical but, next to a natural singer like Bev, she just fails.

I'm pleased to have seen it but I don't think I'll be going back.

'Edward II' at The National Theatre

I'm a fan of Christopher Marlowe who has written some of the greatest verse in the English language - and some people argue that he was Shakespeare - so I was very keen to see this production of a not often performed play. The Olivier stage at the National Theatre seemed an ideal space for it too. O how wrong I was ....

As soon as I walked into the theatre I realised there was something wrong. Namely, a rubbishy dressed stage with the back walls exposed, a cleaner still vacuuming the carpet, racks of costumes on display. And a sort of shed behind the carpet and the throne. Eh? And it went downhill from there with jerky hand-held video cameras used to (what?) effect. There's even a Benny Hill speeded up sequence filmed on the top of the theatre for some obscure reason. Um, what on earth was going on?

Edward's gay credentials were made obvious by snogging his commoner lover (who had an American accent for some reason) and his brother is now his sister in wobbly high heels. Queen Isobella's French credentials were demonstrated by having her smoke Gauloises cigarettes. Edward III stayed the same age throughout for some reason in his/her school uniform.  Um...?

The director obviously had a strong vision for this production but failed to explain it to me. I felt terribly let down.

'Much Ado About Nothing' at The Old Vic

This is the new, much publicised version of the play starring Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones. I saw them in a touching partnership in 'Driving Miss Daisy' on Broadway a few years ago and someone obviously had the bright idea of casting them as jousting lovers in 'Much Ado'. And that was the first mistake.

I saw an amazing production of 'Much Ado' last year with Meera Syal as Beatrice and she milked every line for a laugh and got the rest of the cast to do the same. O how I laughed. This production raised a smile or two and that says it all for me. Sorry to be cruel, but seeing James Earl Jones shuffle around the stage in his parachute-style onesie does not make for exciting theatre. Neither does an under-dressed stage with only a large table (was it meant to be a table?) as the key piece of staging make for pleasant viewing.

I've seen several productions of the play over the years and Claudio - the lover of Hero - is always an awkward role, but this Claudio was the worst by far (I can't be bothered to look up his name). His American accent was awful and he sounded like Rocky Balboa ordering a pizza for his big scene at Hero's funeral - yes, that amount of acting and emotion. C'mon people, this is The Old Vic - get it right!

I'll leave it there I think. It's always a thrill to see Vanessa - particularly on that stage from which Laurence Olivier announced her birth, the birth of a great actress - but some productions are better than others.

'Coriolanus' and Ralph Fiennes

I went to see the new film version of 'Coriolanus' by Ralph Fiennes a week and a bit ago. This was either a labour of love for Mr Fiennes or a vanity project and I can't quite work out which.

'Coriolanus' is a powerful tale of pride and fall and you expect to see high drama but this film seemed to be largely a monotone with little light or shade to highlight the high drama - with few exceptions it was at full throttle throughout and, although that can be very exhilarating, it can also be rather dull if not handled correctly.

Featureless landscapes and dull, concrete cityscapes have their uses but they were unrelenting here. It's supposed to be set in modern Rome with armies shooting and killing each other, savage hand-to-hand combat, blood and gore aplenty and, I have to admit, I just gazed on in bewilderment expecting the 'real' film to start at any moment.

I was terribly disappointed by it. That wasn't what I was expecting or hoping for at all. Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler played it at the same level, at fever pitch intensity throughout and that just loses me. The only light and shade came from the excellent Vanessa Redgrave who rules all the scenes she was in - clearly it's a well written role and perfect for someone like Ms Redgrave but it also served to point a finger and snigger at the two dimensional portrayals of the other actors. The worst scene in the whole film was near the end when Ralph is shouting at Gerard and calling him 'boy' and a close up resembled his portrayal of Lord Voldemort in a 'Harry Potter' film - c'mon people, it's obvious, delete the derogatory 'boy' and the scene might work. Instead, it whisked me away to Hogwarts.

It made me squirm. It made me flinch at the blood and gore. But I didn't admire it, like it or think it's a good film. It's 'Coriolanus' by numbers and I expected more.