Antigone at Hell’s Mouth
Soho Theatre by Leonora Baird-Smith

Antigone at Hell’s Mouth was written by the late Nick Darke as part of a Royal Shakespeare Company project in which each playwright was asked to rework Sophocles’ tragedy in relation to his hometown.
Thus Hell’s Mouth is set in Cornwall, and while to Londoners the problems of the county may have slight relevance, any plot involving terrorism and civil unrest is sure to strike a chord.
With such subject matter, the opening of the play is slightly confusing.
We are faced with a wide array of British stereotypes in what at first seems to be some kind of comedy sketch show, but as names and characters fall into place it becomes clear that this performance is less of a cabaret, than an intelligently choreographed and well put together performance.
Gonnieta, played to perfection by Kate Hewitt, is trapped in a cave to die by the Duke of Cornwall who, due to his stupidity and arrogance, is unable to pacify the nationalist uprising and so condemns all involved to death and appoints himself King.
We are quickly lured into a sense of false security – the classic comic timing, the brilliant performance by Ben Aldridge as the ballet-obsessed Brigadier, and the fantastic skits by the ‘second-home owners’ wives’ lull us until the tragic finale, which knocks all the cheer on the head.
It is always tempting to heap undeserved praise on the young, but in this case, the National Youth Theatre has earned it – the show is hugely entertaining throughout and features not only talented actors, but musicians who also serve to amaze.
My only fear is that the use of stereotypes, most of whom can only be found among today’s teenagers, and the popular cultural references scattered throughout may not resonate with anyone a generation removed from the actors themselves.

Until September 8
020 7478 0100

Gallows humour

The Timekeepers
New End Theatre by Tom Foot

BEFORE the Third Reich, Berlin was a liberal city with many gay bars, nightclubs and cabarets.
There had also been a significant gay rights movement under Magnus Hirschfeld around the turn of the century.
But the advancements of the gay community were soon erased with the Nazis.
What use were gay men in producing the Aryan race?
Around 100,000 were arrested and 50,000 sentenced to prison terms and many committed to mental hospitals.
Hundreds of gay men were castrated under court order.
The gay holocaust is not often discussed. But they were also rounded up and sent to concentration camps – instead of the yellow star, they wore a pink triangle.
The play begins in the Polish concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Two men – a staid Jew and an outrageously camp homosexual – are thrown together as watch menders. Each harbours opinion and stereotype.
But as time ticks by – and the timelessness theme is really done to death – a common humanity begins to shine through, differences are cast aside and a relationship blossoms.
In another historically accurate scene, the Red Cross arrive at the camp. Germans would put on shows for the Red Cross to give the impression that things were not as bad as the world thought. The two captives decide they will sing a piece from Verdi’s Don Carlos as an ode to liberty.
Throughout their ordeal laughter and art keeps them going, while memory and hope tear them apart.
There are no Nazis in this Holocaust play. Even the villain of the piece, the drunken, rapist Capo, is French and he is a prisoner too. And unlike other profound insights into the period, the script is very funny. Some people will find a Holocaust comedy uncomfortable. But the laughter feels licensed by the historical accuracy and high-class acting.
The nightmare seems all the more real when you realise that laughter and art are all that keep the characters sane.
Not in the slightest depressing, and very well performed but a heavy night nevertheless.

Until September 10
0870 033 2733

Charismatic lead dominates stage

Prometheus Bound
Sound Theatre by Leonora Baird-Smith

THE initial fear that one might have accidentally stepped into a seedy, industrial nightclub vanishes as soon as Prometheus and his captors enter the stage.
The ‘ill-fated god’ stole the gift of fire from Zeus and gave it to mankind.
As punishment, he is chained to a barren rock-face with a spike through his heart until he reveals his prophecy of which of Zeus’s sons will succeed him.
David Oyelowo (of the television series Spooks) dominates this magnificent production of Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound in a new translation by James Kerr. His remarkable performance leaves his supporting cast members trailing in his wake.
The chorus that surround him for much of the play increases his suffering with their questioning, as does his questioning of himself and his morality.
He, like Jesus, is able to predict his fate, and his constant Christ-like pose forces this connection upon the audience.
Director James Kerr keeps the audience guessing by leaving plenty to the imagination – the bleak set and minimal props, and the poignantly sparse and haunting music add a further dimension to the level of Prometheus’s despair and suffering. The challenges of a complex plot featuring several drawn out speeches by Prometheus are met as we are drawn into his tale of tragedy, and Oyelowo’s often almost feral wailing and chain-rattling assaults the audience at times.
Oyelowo won the prestigious Ian Charlseon award in 2000 when he played the RSC’s first black king in Henry VI in Stratford.
The Sound Theatre continues its impressive run with another not to be missed show, not only for its ingenious use of a rather dank and claustrophobic space, but for the lead who can deliver a first-class performance every time.

Until September 25
0870 890 0503

Globe waste romp

The Storm
Globe by Robert Tanitch

THE STORM is based on The Rope by Plautus, the great comic dramatist of ancient Rome, and was premiered in 189 BC.
Rough and ready, Plautus’s comedies were aimed at a popular market. The ingredients were stock characters, puns, doubles entendres, topical improvisation, one-liners, anachronisms, dirty jokes and plenty of slapstick.
The equivalent would be the antics of Carry On or Benny Hill. Plautus is just the sort of comic playwright the Globe should be staging. It’s perfect for the tourists who don’t want anything as taxing as Shakespeare.
So why did director Tim Carroll get translator Peter Oswald to throw out the script and come up with a new version? James Garnon is appealing as a slave who wants his freedom. “I am a great lover!” he boasts. “I practice all the time on my own.” Garnon and Mark Rylance have an amusing double act when the slave is trying to persuade his master not to look in a trunk, which the audience knows is full of treasure.
Edward Hogg, playing another slave, is hilarious when he is staggering under the weight of a boulder, which he is holding high above his head and about to use to knock somebody senseless.
But for the most part, The Storm is such amateurish rubbish that in any theatre but the Globe it wouldn’t run a week. An awful lot of people left in the interval.

Until September 30
020 7401 9919