YOU CAN NEVER TELL
Garrick by Illtyd Harrington

AFTER a 100 years, George Bernard Shaw’s irony, wit and humanity still stand the test of time. It is set in a prosperous south coast resort in about 1900; it looks like a very up-market Eastbourne hotel. This is one of his ‘plays pleasant’. It teases and plays about with coincidence and ‘family values’.
In the hands of Peter Hall’s company, who kicked off with it in Bath Theatre Royal, it is captivating. Mrs Clandon, (Diana Quick) has arrived from Madeira with her children, Phil (Mathew Dunphy) and his twin Dolly (Sinead Matthews) as well as their elder sister Gloria (Nancy Carroll). Mrs Clandon is a radical if under-read author who has come back to the south coast.
Dolly in the opening scene is having a tooth pulled by a penurious dentist, Valentine (Ryan Kiggell).
The twins invite him to a lunch at the marine hotel with their mother and sister but when he realises they do not have a father visible or recognisable he tells them he must refuse.
He pompously asks: “Am I to understand you have omitted the indispensable part of your social equipment?” Mr Crampton (Ken Bones), Valentine’s landlord, a pillar of the community who last saw his wife 18 years ago, has acquired, reluctantly, a family. Or re-acquired it.
They all proceed to luncheon at the Marine Hotel where Edward Fox is the headwaiter, a monument to calm and wisdom.
Perhaps Shaw saw himself as this character.
Fox has come a long way from his Day of the Jackal persona.
Effortlessly he goes about organising and disposing food, wine, fine spirits high tea like an Edwardian family retainer always fully sagacity.
One of the most delightful and surprising performances of the year, he has some of the best lines. Some say this is Shaw’s reply to Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of being Earnest. If you want to have your intelligence and humour tickled let Shaw do it.
Until January 14
0870 890 1104

Witty reality TV pastiche

I’M AN ASYLUM SEEKER... GET ME INTO HERE
Rosemary Branch Theatre By Emily Dugan

FOUR contestants in ‘the Asylum House’ are vying to stay in Britain. One will stay in the country and get £50,000, while the other three are sent home to certain death.
What is most disturbing about this play is how easy it is to imagine such a proposal appealing to a Channel 4 commissioning editor. In a dark twist of reality TV, the theatre audience take on the role of a live TV audience, voting off the unwanted immigrants.
The idea behind Tim Lafferty’s script is compelling, original, and politically persuasive, but it is not Orwell.
The play gets off to a shaky start, with characters seeming more like national caricatures than the scared victims of a social experiment. The Russian wants vodka, the Sri Lankan craves spicy food, and her favourite TV show is The Kumars at Number 10.
Some of the symbolism is also a bit heavy handed. A globe stress ball is played with by the housemates, and the Elvis song that gets them going is Jailhouse Rock.
Ansu Kabia, playing the Zimbabwean Ndaba, is a convincing drunk, and the drunken Monopoly game itself is an ingenious idea – truth or dare replace the community chest and chance cards, and you drink every time you pay a fine.
Just wait for the carnage when students discover this.
The most convincing part of the play takes place outside of the asylum house, in the TV presenter’s visits to his grandmother. As the two become closer he discovers the truth about her past, and realises that he is not the person he thought he was.
Anna Barry plays the wise and witty grandmother, who is given some of the best lines. “Soon we’ll all be coffee coloured. Good thing too, there’s nothing worse than a sunburnt Englishman on a beach.”
Until 20 November
020 7704 6665

Jovial ladies take on men

SHAKESPEARE’S SISTERS
The Gatehouse By Dean Matthewson

WHEN her ship ‘The Lucky B*stard’ is wrecked off the Scottish coast Beatrice is taken in by Lady Macbeth and her friend Titania.
Realising she is recently divorced, they set about finding her a new man, much to the chagrin of her former husband Benedick, who determines to win her back.
Shakespeare’s Sisters is a comic tribute to the themes of love and relationships found in The Bard’s work. Weaving together ideas and storylines found throughout his work, the play opens the lid on the lives and loves of the three female protagonists.
Rarely seen in Shakespeare’s work itself we are given an insight into the minds and motivations of the women as they set out to cure their troubled relationships and plot a smooth course through the troubled waters of love.
The sisters here are playful and knowing, at every turn their lover’s equal, but always sadly aware that true love is elusive.
Sliding between Shakespearean verse and contemporary references, the play effortlessly mixes grand imagery, puns and self-aware modern flourishes. “I thought this was supposed to be a romantic comedy?” Beatrice enquires at one stage when matters threaten to take a turn for the tragic.
Beatrice’s attempts at ‘Speed Wooing’ provide the most enjoyable scenes of the play, as she attempts to pick her new man from a host of Shakespearean male characters, including Richard of York, currently having success with his child-minding business.
Director Jonathan Shelly brings us a polished production, boasting excellent performances by the five-strong cast, particularly Justine Marriott’s energetic and playful turn as Titania and Jilly Breeze as the ambitious Lady Macbeth. If you’re a fan of Shakespeare go along and revel in this marvellous tribute. If not, go along anyway and enjoy a well performed comedy.
Until November 19
020 8340 3488

Bard’s farewell to stage

THE TEMPEST
Hobbs Factory by Tom Foot

“SITE-specific” theatre, where audiences are made to follow the act around unusual places, is a risky business.
First-time punters are odds-on to resent the director for tiring them out – especially in the name of art.
The true test is whether you eagerly anticipate the next move, or whether you consider taking a wrong turning, to seek out a seat-specific venue in the pub next door.
Inevitably, there were some early doubters – “not again!” – but by the end of this inspired production there were no stragglers to be seen.
It is set in the derelict shoe factory in Primrose Hill where the up-and-coming Emma Serlin and her Hobbs Factory Company have staged plays for a year. This is the last performance before the factory is demolished and replaced with flats. Her grande-finale stages Shakespeare’s The Tempest in a crumbling den of iniquity. The play was the Bard’s farewell to his Globe theatre; a nice bit of symmetry. Purists generally neglect the play because it has few memorable passages – the most famous being Prospero’s: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”
Traditionalists may not be impressed with Serlin’s sleazy “island” complete with sex-for-sale teenagers in an abandoned strip-joint. But the greatest taboo comes when Serlin mingled some of her own writing with the Bard’s. Brave or foolish, I haven’t decided, but it worked surprisingly well.
Serlin has set the play in the Norfolk Broads. A private joke, perhaps. But The Tempest has never been site-specific in that sense – thousands of words have been wasted on whether Prospero’s isle was in Africa or Indonesia.
By 1611 when the play was written, Shakespeare was coming to the end of his career. Like his character Prospero, he was at the height of his powers, and similarly far-removed from the real world.
As he approached retirement he may have been thinking about his achievements.
For all his popular illustrations of tyranny, society divided by race and rank, and for all the laughter, could he say he’d changed anything?
Shakespeare’s swansong stars himself as the lead. It is a meditation on his trade, and its impotency, showing art as a plaything of idealists – just stuff that dreams are made on. Prospero’s farewell is Shakespeare’s good riddance to the theatre.
Until November 13
020 7428 5897

Artist needs to show more passion

POINT AND SHOOT
Camden People’s by Rebecca Omonira

Pleasure Seekers’ production Point and Shoot explores the passion behind a photographer and their work.
Flora is clearly dedicated to her art and when she develops a relationship with Sebastian, the solitude of her photography is tested.
Point and Shoot is an interesting combination of two artistic mediums: photography and drama. Although it is stunningly realised through lighting, misty screens and haunting music, it lacks any sort of life. The lack of drama in the play as it explores Flora’s inability to open herself to Sebastian the way she does with her art creates a bittersweet tableau. Like a moving tableau, it is fascinating for a moment but only a moment. It ultimately leaves no lasting impression.
Point and Shoot is a beautiful production. But as Sebastian is frustrated by Flora’s lack of engagement with him, the audience too only sees a snapshot of the emotions experienced by the protagonists, which is not enough to care or desire more.
Point and Shoot charms superficially but does not draw an audience in. Although the surrealistic nature of the drama contributes to its charm; it provides no interaction with the characters. Point and Shoot leaves you craving more intimacy with Flora and Sebastian, instead we are left indifferent.
Until November 27
020 7419 4841

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