Day: June 7, 2013

Strange Interlude, the National Theatre’s new production of Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer award winning play, is neither very strange – more solid – and certainly not an interlude, being nearly three and a half hours long (cut down from the original, bum-numbing five!)

Beginning in 1920s America and hinging on Nina (Anne-Marie Duff), a woman in mourning for her fiance Gordon whom she lost a few weeks before the end of the war, and the coterie of men surrounding her, Strange Interlude is a family saga with some lovely twists and turns. It explores the themes of happiness and how we kid ourselves that we’re doing something to make someone else happy when it’s usually really for our own ends.

Nina’s life is planned out for her by the men in it. Her father (Patrick Drury), who forbade her to marry Gordon before he went to fight, old family friend Charlie (Charles Edwards), and Ned (Darren Pettie), a doctor who’s charged with looking out for Nina’s mental health, conspire to marry her off to her dull but reliable workmate, Sam (Jason Watkins). Charlie loves her but doesn’t want anyone too ‘good’ to get his hands on her so gives the match his blessing, her father feels guilty for not letting her marry Gordon, and Ned simply thinks a baby would do her good. Nina goes along with it to rid herself of her urge to sleep with the wounded soldiers she nurses in a convalescent home (seeing Gordon in each one), and because she wants to become a mother.

She’s soon pregnant but it’s only then that Sam’s mother drops a bombshell: there’s a history of insanity in Sam’s family and she must get rid of the baby in case it has inherited it too.

In a series of  long but engaging scenes, stretching from Nina’s grief for Gordon’s fate right through to her old age, we see how the protagonists change over time, and the consequences of actions that are meant well, but often not thought out properly.

This production, directed by Simon Godwin, sometimes nods a bit too much towards the farcical, especially with Charlie who tends to burst into every scene with an absurd “What am I doing here?” or a self-deprecatory “Poor old Charlie!” Edwards plays him for laughs, but he’s also the nearest we have to a narrator here, amongst the usual O’Neill character asides.

The set is a game of two halves, the first being all homely Americana: studies and porches in muted greens and browns. After the interval, when Sam grows wealthy and successful, we go upmarket with a gorgeous Art Deco caged staircase in his Park Lane apartment and a gigantic yacht that glides onto the stage so convincingly it elicited a round of applause all of its own.

The acting is uniformly excellent, with Duff sailing through the saga with a deceptive ease. Watkins manages to convey Sam’s simple ‘gee-whizz’ nature with his Cowell-esque trousers almost up to his nipples, his lick ‘n’ spit hair and his eager-puppy stance, while Edward’s Charlie is funny, sentimental and spiteful in equal measures (“He’s an old cissy,” says Ned, the ‘manliest’ of the men).

Touching on issues of hereditary madness and abortion, Strange Interlude was a hot potato in its time, being banned or censored in various US states. To us, of course, it’s lost that frissance but it hasn’t lost its power to move. It’s a real and substantial story, but it’s is also a dance between four characters (five towards the end). Although the dance goes on for years – decades – it isn’t tiring, nor is the play tired out. It’s fresh and absorbing, and comes full circle nicely. As Nina remarks, the strange interlude seems to her to be the period between the start of the play when she’s living with her father, and the end when she’s about to marry a father figure. Her strange interlude is her independent, fatherless life.

Event: Strange Interlude

Where: National Theatre, South Bank, London
When: Until 12 August
Tickets: £12-£48

For more information, CLICK HERE: 

Adrian Bunting, who died suddenly last month of pancreatic cancer was a well-known and much respected face in Brighton theatre circles.

He founded the legendary performance platform ZINCBAR in the 1990s and his play, Kembel’s Riot, won Best Play at Brighton Fringe Festival a couple of years ago. A generous soul, he also provided a helping hand for others to get their work up and running.

Adrian’s last wish was for his home town of Brighton to have a theatre in the open air. He even chose the site –  the disused bowling green in Dyke Road Park – and named the project B.O.A.T: Brighton Open Air Theater. When he died, he left a substantial amount of money towards the project.

His friends have now got together and taken Adrian’s project a step further. The council has, this week, approved the site and on Sunday, June 16 there’s to be a B.O.A.T benefit concert at the Dome Concert Hall.

Featuring Stewart Lee, Time Vine, Simon Evans, Joanna Neary and Mark Thomas, the city will get together to raise money for this fantastic project, as well as honouring Adrian’s memory and applauding his vision.

It’s hoped that the B.O.A.T will be sailing in time for next year’s Brighton Festival, so get down to the Dome and do your bit for the theatrical life of the city. Oh, and have a good chuckle too….

Event: B.O.A.T.Fundraiser

Where: Dome Concert Hall, Church Street, Brighton BN1 1UE
When: Sunday, June 16, 8pm
Tickets: £20/£15
More information: CLICK HERE:

To see Adrian talking about the project: CLICK HERE:  http://vimeo.com/67580315

Last time I saw Hal Cruttenden he was acting his chops off in the tiny Trafalgar Studios in a show based on the works of George Orwell. “Yes, I’m a ‘proper’ actor,” he says in Tough Luvvie, his new solo comedy piece. “Three years at acting school, then bit parts on the telly.” So now he’s trying his hand at stand up and making a bloody good fist of it, forging a successful path in a very different way. Cruttenden is a comedian on the verge of stardom. That’s pretty plain to see.

He’s a comparatively gentle comedian and a very camp man. He can’t help it, he says. Even his 12 year old daughter Martha is convinced he’s gay. Middle aged and middle-spreading, he’s a “typical middle class twat”, a man who hates ‘manly men’ and who runs away from any sort of confrontation. Even his banter with the audience is pretty good natured.

A woman runs into the show late, clearly flustered and excited. “I’m sorry,” she gasps, “but I’ve just bumped into a Made in Chelsea person!” Which one?, he asks her. “Francis!” Another person squeals at the name. “You’re SO not my crowd,” exclaims Hal, big grin on his face.

Battling a little to be heard above the thud, thud, thud coming from outside the cosy Uderbelly, Cruttenden confesses his left wing leanings – “I am political but quite badly informed” – while imagining how politicians speak to their children, and the fact that we all love the poor as long as they’re from 150 years ago and can hold a showtune.

He also has a novel take on Operation Yewtree – it means there’s more space for him to get on the Royal Variety Show: “Lots of parts opening up. Two in Corrie. Then there’s Animal Hospital….” His nastiest joke is at the expense of Oscar Pistorius, and I think we can all take that one on the chin.

There’s so little to dislike about Cruttenden and so much to like. He’s not your most outrageously innovative comedian, but nor is he a bland bugger. And he’s funny. Which always helps.

I reckon that in ten years time we’ll see Hal going full circle and taking on more acting than comedy. Comedy is the new bit part in The Bill, you see: a way in. And you can, of course, make an absolute fortune in the process. Which always helps too…..

You can catch Hal next up in Edinburgh, and he’s back in London in November (but he’ll be on your tellybox much sooner than that I’m sure)

Four and a half stars

The round stage is 3.6 metres across. Tiny. And it’s bare, save 8 lightbulbs swinging over it. And I’m in the very front row, almost pressed up against the bare wood.

I’m in Limbo, the show, and also in a state of unknowing. This is scary. The performers are going to be on top of me, bearing down on me.

A stout Tim Burton dressed in a white suit growing nascent feathery wings stomps on stage with the mic to his mouth. He summons a grimacing man in a black suit onto the stage with a series of gestures and some strangely contorted electronic sounds. The haunted man bends over backwards to please….literally.

And we’re off into Limbo – purgatory if you will – but sheer heaven for us punters.

Limbo was a massive hit down in Oz earlier this year and now it’s the centrepiece of the London Wonderground Festival, playing at the Spiegeltent most nights this sultry summer. The brainchild of director Scott Maidment who brought the groundbreaking Cantina to the same venue last year, the show features six all-round circus performers plus the wild and wacky musical stylings of the wonderfully named Sxip Shirey.

Indeed, it’s the music that hits you first, or rather the narrative soundscape of Shirey’s voice electronically morphed to scare you witless as he plays the puppet-master, Satan fallen from heaven, calling all the lost souls to perform for him, for us. Then the band proper strikes up and we’re in Spiegeltent home-territory for a while. Can a tent have a musical theme? I suppose so, as the Spieg’s is definitely Bavarian Oompah crossing the road to avoid a New Orleans funeral just as Tom Waits pokes his head from the coffin to start singing.

A bowler-hatted Danik Abishev balances with his hands on five poles, and he’s so close I can see every muscle, sinew, bead of sweat as he smiles and flirts with the crowd while hopping from one pole to another.

You think a horse is about to canter up to the stage but it’s Hilton Denis, tapping around the perimeter of the darkened tent, while Jonathan Nosan (The Haunted Man) adds menace and a touch of obssessive sexual longing to the piece, plus some ‘ooh, ahh’ bodily contortions.

Standout performer is the absolutely gorgeous Frenchman Mikael Bres who takes pole dancing to new heights and even clothed, made me want to lick him. Curling around the pole at the very top of the tent, he drops a feather and suddenly slides down to the bottom, catching it and halting abruptly six inches before he smashes into the floor. It’s heart-stopping stuff, especially when he winks seductively to you as he uncurls himself and takes a bow.

The performers jump on and off stage, joining each other for interludes between the main acts, interludes that turn into ‘turns’ in their own right. It’s seductive, sexy, and close-up.

I wouldn’t usually bother to recommend paying more for ringside seats (these are £40-£50 a pop), but with this show it’s different. You’ll want to be as near the action as the front row will take you. Sit in the cheap seats (£10-£17) and you’ll be just close enough: sit in a booth at the back (£180-£200 for up to 10 people) and you’ll feel like life is happening elsewhere.

The one act that includes all seats equally is a pole swinging piece where three super fit male bodies sway above you, bearing down on you, touching you, sweating on you. You look up in awe, mouth open, hypnotized by the motion. Will they crash into each other in the middle of the stage? Of course not: it ends with a mid-air three-way hug, then darkness.

Then fire! Lots of fire! This is when it pays to be way back in a booth as it felt like my eyebrows were in danger of being singed off. Inexplicably, this wasn’t the climax of the show even though it would have made a spectacular ending. After this there’s a rather neat trick featuring an eye-watering spike, and then there’s Evelyne Allard looping in and out of chains high above the stage which was the only time my attention wandered slightly.

Throughout the show, the music loops and curls and kicks and stamps and cajoles. ‘Jank’ is the word Shirey uses to describe the noise: it’s jacked up junk with an electric sousaphone dub step baseline. With the whole cast involved in its production, it’s delicious. Countless conventional instruments are used along with bicycle bells, marbles rolling around in a glass bowl, and Shirey’s manipulated voice and harmonica, together making a sound as delicate as a feather landing on the stage or as rollerballing as freight train about to run you over.

The songs can be heartbreaking, as in Will You Catch Me When I Fall which accompanies Bres’s Chinese pole dancing, or rambunctiously rabble-rousing. The soundtrack carries the show along with a momentum all of its own, and there’s a surprise near the end when musician Mick Stuart starts singing. His plaintive, clear voice should have been used more.

I’m not usually one to recommend circus in any shape or form. Honestly, I’m one of those annoying sods who sits there with a stony look on her face as if to say ‘seen it all before’ (typical reviewer). But even I was won over by Limbo. Completely won over. I came out into the warm night air of the South Bank feeling like I’d really seen a Show with a capital S (not forgetting the E and the X).

I can’t recommend this sensual, sassy, enervating spectacular enough. Miss it and you really will be in purgatory, and don’t rely on me to pray for your circus soul.

Five stars *****

Event: Limbo

Where: London Wonderground, Spiegeltent, Southbank Centre, London
When: Various shows until September 29
Tickets: from £10-£50 (£180-£220 for a booth for up to ten people)
For more information: CLICK HERE: