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The runner up of the week (or another show you should know about): Juno and the Paycock (National Theatre)

This production of Sean O'Casey's 1924 play is, somewhat amazingly, the first collaboration between our local National Theatre and the Irish national theatre, the Abbey. Many reviewers took a sort of tone of "what a wonderful step in the right direction, let's see more" and it was swimming around with an average of about 3.2 stars (next to The Lion in Winter and Salt, Root and Roe)...that is, until Quentin Letts (Daily Mail) waded in with his five-star stamp. Letts gives five stars more often than most reviewers, but even so only gives them about once a month. He doesn't seem to regard them as precious nuggets to be doled out only to the truly worthy, but rather will slap them on any time he really enjoys something.

In any event, he is one of our Top Critics and he clearly liked it, summing it up as "gregarious, gruelling but great" and "a mesmerising mix of comedy and tragedy." Set in 1922, the play shows us an Irish tenement-dwelling family nurturing delusions of grandeur while civil war rages in the streets. Letts sees the strengths of this production as "rooted foremost in fidelity to O'Casey's priceless characters," and thus in the actors - some of whom are national treasures in Ireland, but new to London - who play those characters with more nuance and richness than lesser performers might. In the title roles, Ciaran Hinds resists the call to play "the flamboyant, bibulous Paycock, 'Captain' Jack Boyle", as "a drunk to amuse the tourists," instead turning him into "a more considerable figure." Sinead Cusack, as the matriarch Juno, is "sinuous, not sensuous," giving the part more range, and the crucial ability to carry the piece from riotous to despairing and back.

In contrast, Charles Spencer felt the production, at least in these early days, "never quite achieves the seamless flow of mood from wild comedy to deepest tragedy." Though much of it is "wonderfully funny," he found the current performances "too over-emphatic, with characters talking too loudly and often missing the eloquent Irish street poetry of O'Casey's writing and his amazing ability to turn the mood on a sixpence." Nevertheless, "there is much to admire": Hinds "finds a rich vein of comedy" playing a "boozy self-aggrandising waster" and the play's "final minutes," which contain the type of revelation which will not be a revelation to anyone who has ever seen a play set in a 1920s Irish tenement, are "superbly achieved." "When the show settles down," he admits, "this patchy production of a masterpiece might just become a great one."

Runs to 3 January 2012

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/1146

Clunker of the week (word to the wise): Ex: A Play With Song (Soho Theatre)

This "play with songs" forces our StageScanning hand to return to using our third newsletter slot for the "Clunker of the week (a word to the wise)." From the reviews, it appears to be the kind of thing you'd see on at the Arts (home of Park Avenue Cat, and on a quick glance the only theatre in our database with a sub-three-star lifetime average) rather than the Soho, but there you go. (And to be fair to the Arts, their current show, A British Subject, takes them in a different direction and is getting decent reviews.)

Lyn Gardner (Guardian) very rarely takes solid aim right at an underperforming show, seemingly preferring to gloss over her star ratings (her three-stars cover a wide range of quality) and to let her text subtly make her feelings clear. (This is in contrast to Charles Spencer who I think likes giving two stars more than three - it shows more conviction - and always relishes the chance to tell you why.) So, for Gardner to give Ex a single star really says something.

It's not that she doesn't like plays with songs - "Soho played host to a cracker in David Greig and Gordon McIntyre's blissful Scottish romantic comedy Midsummer" last year. But "the sun doesn't shine on Rob Young and Ross Lorraine's dire four-hander, which promises a smart-talking, sexually upfront modern Private Lives, but instead makes you think about permanently ending your relationship with theatre."

The plot - two exes meet up, feel a spark, and wonder what to do about it - clearly doesn't aspire to any great shakes. Unfortunately, the sparkiness equals that of "a couple of damp matches at a drizzly barbecue" and it's downhill from there. "There is a credibility gap between the wisecracking script and the charmless characters, who too often sound as if they are reading from a dictionary of modern humorous quotations rather than anything they might really believe and say. Add a clutch of instantly forgettable songs, some outdated gender politics and a vein of misogyny and there is little a hard-working cast can salvage from a show that puts the ex into excruciating."

Dominic Maxwell (Times) called it "a horrible mess"; a "cack-handed romantic comedy mixed, bizarrely, with some plaintive songs." Though "Ross Lorraine's music has some beautiful moments," the story and characters are senseless: this is a show "that needs much more development to be ready for a paying audience." By now you get the point, but I'll continue just to get in Maxwell's determined anthropology of the misbehaving male, or as he lays it out in the case of a character called Jack, "a petulant, lewd, faithless, facetious manchild. 'Why do women always fall for bastards'," his ex asks us. Unfortunately, "this doesn't resonate because Gerard Carey's unshaven, fidgety Jack isn't a bastard; he's a prick." (In contrast to poor Kieran Bew, Carey has somewhat of a friend in Maxwell, who tells us that "he's miscast, never looking convinced by himself as an insatiable Lothario.")

Fiona Mountford (Evening Standard) puts the case against the play just as well with just one sentence: "Why [Jack] would cause the ex he mistreated to think again as she teeters on the brink of a life-changing decision is beyond me and any sane woman."

Runs to 3 December

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/1113

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The runner up of the week (or another show you should know about): Hamlet (Young Vic)

As someone who peer-reviewed this at 4.5 stars, I was surprised at the slightly lower scores for this, and it took me a while to understand it.

It's not surprising, I suppose, that Shakespeare is reviewed differently than other productions. Most critics will have gone to the Young Vic having already seen and reviewed twenty Hamlets in their career, and fully versed in the different choices a director can make with it. A new interpretation that doesn't resonate may feel like seeing a bad film of a book you loved.

I should get down to business and start by saying all the pro reviewers found Michael Sheen's performance riveting, and most think this production is worth seeing. Of the eight who wrote it up in the nation's newspapers, five give a solid four stars. The variances come from whether you buy into the interpretation of the play which director Ian Rickson puts forth.

For casual theatregoers, this idea may be a turnoff. It is easy to imagine a reader saying "I don't want to see someone's interpretation - I just want to see the play as it was written, nothing fancy." The difficulty is, of course, that with Shakespeare everyone already knows the characters and the plot; there really is no reason to do a new production unless it offers a new interpretation.

As for this version, Sarah Hemming (FT) helpfully addresses this question head-on, so we quote here at more length than usual:

"There have been many Hamlets recently, several of them outstanding. We had David Tennant's vividly intelligent, grief-torn prince: we had Rory Kinnear, a decent man trapped in a slippery world of surveillance. Do we need another? The answer, in Ian Rickson's new staging with Michael Sheen in the lead, is, emphatically, yes. In fact, it is perhaps because those subtle productions are fresh in the memory that Rickson can go for broke, giving us an extreme reading that will certainly alienate some audience members, but that has a terrifying freshness to it. It's a reading that pays a big price - we lose, most crucially, the significant political dimension of Shakespeare's play - but it draws us into Hamlet's experience in a hair-raising way."

Unsubtle is right; the production is set in a secure psychiatric facility and it's quite clear from the outset that Hamlet is bonkers. The question, for those disposed to explore it, is whether the whole play is simply going on in Hamlet's head, or whether what we are watching is a reality to which he is only partially hinged. Michael Billington (Guardian)'s review seemed the most nuanced in its interpretation of the interpretation, seeing Rickson's choices, such as the one to have Horatio and Guildenstern played by women, as in service of a concept rather than caprice. However, he said, "the acid test of any concept is whether it liberates the play and, for me, this doesn't. It may be intellectually ingenious, but its practical effect is to present the action through the prism of Hamlet's personal anxiety." Lost in this interpretation, as Hemming also noted, are "the play's politics, and the idea that the hero's troubles are one aspect of a turbulent society initially on a war footing." Those who saw Nicholas Hytner and Rory Kinnear's Hamlet may remember that production's feeling of relevance to the present day; Rickson has no such aspiration.

And what of the Welshman at the heart of it? Billington notes that "all this puts the focus on Michael Sheen, who is fascinating to watch. He is intelligent, inventive and full of insights." Hemming likewise praised Sheen's "magnetic" Hamlet: "likeable, vulnerable, vivid and volatile," who, after his attempt to return to his studies in Wittenberg is thwarted, "begins to unravel, taking us with him through his flat depression, lucid reasoning, profound insights and sudden terrifying plunges into despair." In fact, every reviewer marvelled at Sheen's performance, and most said he was the reason to see the production, even if the rest of it was less certain. (My personal view, which regular readers will know I rarely inject into these summaries, is more pointed: Rickson could not have executed this interpretation without Sheen there to carry it.) Henry Hitchings noted that even though Rickson's "approach is remorselessly high-concept and will not be to everyone's taste," in the end "it is the bravura of Sheen's performance that will live in the memory. His is a dangerous, psychotic Hamlet - yet a tender, vulnerable one. It is an audacious achievement."

Runs to 21 January 2012

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/177

A third show of note: The Westbridge, (The Bussey Building, Peckham; and then the Royal Court)

Charles Spencer (Telegraph) says "this thrilling debut play by Rachel De-lahay," which explores the interrelationships on a South London estate as racial tensions rise, "plugs straight into the jittery heart of multicultural London today." If this sounds overly worthy or grim, however, the plot and setting description "is only half the picture. De-lahay has an alert ear for comic dialogue and her portrait of mixed-race, upwardly mobile twentysomethings on the estate - one character works in PR, another is an aspiring model - crackles with wit as well as moments of deep emotion." Director Clint Dyer's "cracking" production "hurtles along in telling scenes that do justice to both the comedy and the serious underlying issues" of the play. The production is also "ingeniously designed" by [the one-named] Ultz, who delivers an experience of the audience sitting on scattered chairs in the centre of the space while the action takes place on raised platforms around the room.

Michael Coveney (What's On Stage) also appreciates De-lahay as a rising playwright: "even though her sharp, bitty dialogue is predictably full of street patois and hoodie slang, it sounds both invigorating and instantly familiar. The scenes chop and change quickly, too, sustaining several story-lines, so the effect is like watching EastEnders live in a recording studio, but with more swearing." While he felt, unlike Spencer, that the show "never quite justifies its physical presentation," he did find De-lahay to be "very good at writing relationships under strain," and found credible the core message that "cultural integration is much more complicated than we sometimes think." Though some aspects of the production don't "really 'land'" or are "disappointingly flat," there remains "a vivid authenticity about the writing that bodes well, and is further evidence of the extraordinary amount of talent" being surfaced by the Royal Court's writing programmes, one of which nurtured De-lahay towards this debut.

As Spencer notes, the production's initial residence in a former cricket bat factory in Peckham "is part of the Royal Court's admirable Theatre Local programme, which in a previous incarnation took over an abandoned retail outlet in a run-down shopping centre at the Elephant and Castle to present a play about the fallout from a teenage gang knifing. The idea is to bring theatre to people who would sooner see plays on their doorstep rather than schlep up to posh Sloane Square." As such, it runs in the Bussey Building in Peckham until 19 November, and then transfers to the upstairs studio at the Royal Court.

Runs to 23 December

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/640

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The runner up of the week (or another show you should know about): Roadkill (Barbican / Theatre Royal Stratford East)

Roadkill had uniformly excellent reviews, but only a small handful of them, which kept it out of the very top spot. Nonetheless, its ability to move those reviewers who did see it is exactly the reason we keep space in these newsletters for "a show you should know about." Roadkill comes to London after sellout runs in Edinburgh and Paris, with its premiere here under the sponsorship of the Barbican.

Sarah Hemming (FT) notes "The title doesn't exactly promise a light-hearted evening's entertainment, and, sure enough, this play by Cora Bissett and Stef Smith is harrowing. It is also, however, compassionate and serious in intent. Bissett (who also directs) and her company help you to empathise with the victims of child sex trafficking by placing you in their environment." Audience members meet at a theatre in Stratford, and are then taken by minibus (on which they meet some of the characters) to an anonymous modern house, where the horrors begin. "This is immersive theatre at its most powerful: you feel shocked, distressed and trapped, but that is part of the point."

Fiona Mountford (Evening Standard) also starts by saying "be warned: this is as uncomfortable a night in the theatre as you're ever likely to get." The "brutal and compelling" piece, which tells the story of Mary, a girl trafficked to Scotland from Africa, is mostly "unrelenting anguish, leavened only by Mary's remarkable resilience of spirit." Mary is played by the "graceful" Mercy Ojelade, who "gives a performance of such shattering intensity that I have no idea how she even manages to stand up for the curtain call, let alone repeat the show twice in an evening."

Amy Stow (What's on Stage) lauded all three actors as "exceptional. Adura Onashile as Martha/Auntie is three-dimensional and raw, hinting at the struggle and compassion underneath her seeming brutality. John Kazek has the tough job of playing various characters, some of whom you want to pummel, others you silently pray would do more to help Mary, but altogether portrays individuals that are horribly real. Mercy Ojelade as Mary, however, is a revelation, a real rising star whose performance is not to be missed." The overall experience is "uncomfortable, vivid, nauseating and induces fist-clenching anger. But it's also brilliant, sobering, frank, very moving, and, unfortunately, a real snippet of British society that lurks in the shadows." She sees the playwrights' goal as raising awareness "in the hope that listeners may, with wide-eyed trepidation, be motivated to act." Though it is hard to wring any optimism from the dispiriting material, Roadkill sets itself the goal of actually doing something about this problem rather than just portraying it, and is "thankfully, through a combination of realism and shock-factor, special enough to succeed."

Runs to 20 November

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/899

The clunker of the week, or an acquired taste (a word to the wise): Three Days in May (Trafalgar Studios)

Just as with Jumpy at the Royal Court, which got this slot a few weeks ago, this is not a clunker, but rather another show in a major theatre which splits its reviews between three and four stars. Thus, it is most likely a good play for you to see only if you go into it already predisposed towards the genre it embodies. Jumpy was (in Michael Coveney's words) "yet another 'frank and funny family drama'", whereas this one is, as dubbed by Fiona Mountford (Evening Standard), "a wordy and worthy drama of the "men in suits sitting around a table looking worried" genre."

It tells the story of the three days in May 1940 when some members of Churchill's War Cabinet considered surrendering a bit of British territory to Hitler in an effort to end the war. The drama of the piece, such as it is, is Churchill's both arguing and manoeuvring to bring the whole Cabinet around to the conclusion to recommit to winning the war. Charles Spencer notes that author Ben Brown "has set himself a hard task with a play which largely consists of a group of elderly men sitting in a room and debating." However, "the play proves both riveting and moving, even though one knows how it will all pan out." He concludes somewhat inevitably that it is "one of those all too rare evenings of theatre that make one feel genuinely proud to be British."

Quentin Letts (Daily Mail) also made it quite clear: "Three Days In May is not for airheads. The West End's hen parties will find it dry. But anyone interested in history or politics is in for a satisfying, informative evening." and Libby Purves appreciated its "gimmick-free, unadorned storytelling. It kept me riveted by its very un-theatricality. I felt I was in the room, and glad to be there." Only Michael Coveney (What's On Stage) admitted to being un-riveted by the debating, saying there is "something incurably inert about the piece until we hear what we've come for: Churchill, on his feet, addressing the House. At last, the rhetoric kicks in, and the phrases roll out."

Runs to 3 March 2012

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/1185

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The runner up of the week (or another show you should know about): 13 (National Theatre)

This new three-hour epic on the big stage at the National didn't fully win anyone over - although it did rouse Michael Billington to four stars; he has been looking for weeks for a play that strived for a bigger meaning, and here finds one. Otherwise, the reviewers were united in admiring Tom Scutt's dazzling, multi-storey cube of a set; the performances of Trystan Gravelle and Geraldine James as, respectively, an #OccupyWallStreet type and a popular Conservative PM; and director Thea Sharrock's ability to keep everything moving briskly forward in the face of Mike Bartlett's ambitious script. The reviewers were more split on whether Bartlett had tried to cover too much ground, whether the characters were too thinly drawn, and whether Act 2 - in which the action settles from Act 1's cast-of-dozen vignettes into a measured, even-handed debate amongst a few principals - was insightful enough to be worth the buildup.

Libby Purves (Times) appreciated both halves, noting that in Act 1, "around Tom Scutt's fabulous giant revolving cube of urban nightmare, a huge cast stride and interact in a series of thin but nicely crafted vignettes of city life: student demonstrators, one-night stands, an American diplomat with a precocious brat, a lawyer (Adam James with a perfect posh swagger) and Helen Ryan as a demented jogging granny who sings Rihanna off-key and gets the laughs. They are all having the same bad dream every night, and this zeitgeisty unease coalesces round the Twitterish, flash-mob alternativism of the idealistic Welshman (Trystan Gravelle)." In Act 2, "the play transforms itself. No more revolving boxes and inconsequential neurotics but a debate, which the director Thea Sharrock keeps just this side of static, between the PM, the atheist and the demagogue. They trade arguments about Iran, tax and the NHS like an unusually articulate edition of Newsnight."

Michael Billington was not always convinced, but he was moved. "It is easy to point to the play's faults…when [the idealistic Welshman] John says: 'It is not the object of belief that is important but belief itself,' I felt like registering a strong objection. But Bartlett has pinned down, in a way few dramatists recently have, the unease that is currently in the air: the sensation that we are sleepwalking into some kind of disaster that may stem from economic collapse, environmental upheaval or the logical extension of the war on terror. Bartlett has his finger on the pulse and for that I can easily forgive his play's improbabilities." Despite its shortcomings, then, this is "a powerful, disturbing play about the values by which we live and one that passionately argues for some kind of spiritual revolution."

While Billington saw Bartlett arguing a point of view ("I still believe, unlike Bartlett, that real change can only be effected through the existing machinery of politics") , Matt Trueman (What's On Stage) said Bartlett "works hard to leave us with a question rather than a solution" - an interpretation matched by other critics, who found the debate between the passionate believer and the pragmatic politician refreshingly even-handed. Trueman, like Billington, saw greatness through the flaws: "Broad archetypes serve as political mouthpieces and the narrative skips like a scratched CD to set up a showdown. But, in spite of such faults, the piece captivates throughout. Its direct address demands our attention."

Runs to 8 January 2012

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/639

The clunker of the week (a word to the wise): Death and the Maiden (Pinter Theatre)

Another less-than-success with celebrity casting at the Pinter-nee-Comedy Theatre, this time with Hollywood star Thandie Newton taking the West End stage for the first time. (Longtime StageScan readers will remember our broadside against the commercial crassness of staging The Children's Hour with Keira Knightley and Elisabeth Moss.) Ariel Dorfman's script, which won the Olivier for Best New Play at the Royal Court in 1991, is widely praised as gripping stuff: in an unnamed Latin American country, a former prisoner comes face to face with a man she believed to be her ex-captor, and subjects him to a vigilante trial while her husband watches.

Despite the strong script and "decent performances" from the rest of the cast, says Charles Spencer (Telegraph), it isn't enough to overcome "the fatal weak link at the heart" of this production. "Miss Newton simply doesn't have the theatrical chops for so demanding a role and her tight, strained voice, improbably immaculate hair-do and inability to really let rip and lay herself bare emotionally severely diminishes the play's impact."

Quentin Letts (Daily Mail) was friendly enough about it: "The good news is that Miss Newton is not a complete disaster. She just about survives the ride. I am not sure I can put it more strongly than that. The voice lacks variety. The face is inexplicably placid. Urgency is weirdly absent." I could go on and lay out other quotes, but in a way it's remarkable that all eight pro reviewers said almost exactly the same thing. Six of them specifically referenced Newton's voice, and the other two both used the phrase "one note". Nobody gave more than three stars, and there were a couple twos.

So, in short, this is a potentially good play, but you'll probably want to wait for a revival which includes someone who can deliver the critical lead role.

Runs to 21 January 2012

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/928

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The runner up of the week (or another show you should know about): Crazy For You (Novello Theatre)

Crazy for You did very well over the summer at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre and now comes inside at the Novello, where it is getting solid raves again (four stars from every reviewer so far). The show is, somewhat confusingly, a newish Gershwin musical; it was written in the early 1990s, after both Gershwin brothers had been dead for many years. Andrew Girvan (What's On Stage), unconstrained by print column inches, gives great backstory in his review, explaining that writer Ken Ludwig "was given free rein of George and Ira's back-catalogue by the Gershwin estate when tasked with rewriting the 1930 musical Girl Crazy." The result is "a colourful, escapist musical where his easygoing comedy - liberally splashed with slapstick and farce - is combined with a selection of Gershwin's greatest hits."

Sarah Hemming (FT) says "with its daft plot, corny jokes and cast of squealing chorus girls and hunky cowboys, it walks the narrow line between homage and spoof - and Timothy Sheader's excellent staging pitches it perfectly." Quentin Letts (Daily Mail) sums up the plot: "Tomboy Polly is the only girl in the town of Deadrock, Nevada, in the early 20th century. Her dad owns the decrepit Gaiety Theatre. New York moneyman Bobby Child turns up to foreclose the joint. He falls in love with the Gaiety and Polly and - hey, we have a musical, folks!" Admittedly, "Ibsen it ain't. But good, glamorissimo fun with a pulsating beat? You bet!" Fiona Mountford (Evening Standard) surveyed all the ingredients and declared the plot "more than usually daffy. No matter. What counts is that banker Bobby (Sean Palmer) has charisma and his leading lady, tomboy Polly (Clare Foster) is smart and sexy in equal measure. They sing and dance up a treat, as the Gershwin hits keep coming." Even the chorus line is marked out: "They're perky and switched-on, not dead behind the eyes like so many in big musicals, and they clearly revel in Stephen Mear's clever choreography. There are a number of extended song and dance numbers to cherish, which are unrivalled by anything else in the West End."

Runs to 28 July 2012

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/1137

The clunker of the week (a word to the wise): Jumpy (Royal Court)

Premieres on the main stage at the Royal Court always get a fair bit of attention, and with seven reviewers weighing in on Jumpy, this is no exception. (It's not fair to call this one the clunker of the week, given its 3.5 star average; in fact there was no real clunker this week so it's just another one to be aware of.)

The plot revolves around a teenage daughter and fiftyish mother who don't get on. Henry Hitchings (Evening Standard) called the play "a shrewdly observed picture of midlife crisis and the travails of marriage," but didn't find it more broadly resonant: "the play's politics are slight, and its feminism isn't exactly heavyweight. But for the most part it's perceptive, vigorous and entertaining."

For every four-star review like Henry's there was a three-star like Michael Coveney's (What's On Stage), who felt the lack of broader resonance kept it from being very interesting. He went into the show dreading "yet another 'frank and funny family drama'" which "feels like something belonging in the upstairs studio"; what he was searching for (perhaps harking back to a prior viewing of Jerusalem) was that "epic or metaphorical dimension that makes a Royal Court play feel special on the main stage." Though there were some attempts at poetry by the end, they were too late to save this "literal-minded, deliberately low-level and brutish comedy."

Runs to 19 November

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/650

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The runner up of the week (or another show you should know about): Backbeat (Duke of York's Theatre)

This show, based on the film of the same name, tells the backstory of the Beatles by delving into their time in Hamburg when they were John, Paul, George, Pete and Stuart. The critics were more varied on this one, ranging from two to five stars, with the five coming from Ian Shuttleworth (FT) who has not bestowed that score in the past five months. He starts his review by saying “For half a lifetime, I have dreamt of a play in which the drama emerged from music being played live. Backbeat achieves precisely this.” The show is not a parade of Beatles hits, but rather of the covers they were playing before they started writing. Thus, “what we hear - and which is in some ways much harder to do [than deliver the hits] - is the progression, the development from journeyman rock’n’roll renditions to the first budding of what became the Beatles sound.” For this “mature, vital and organic” achievement, five stars.

Lyn Gardner (Guardian) gave only three stars, but more positive text, calling it an “intelligent, multilayered and often touching account“ of the Beatles’ early days, and “more a play with songs than a fully fledged musical.” She sets expectations firmly by noting approvingly that the show is, “despite all its raucous energy and high levels of amplification, often quite downbeat. It's all the better for it.”

Naysayers Libby Purves and Charles Spencer, however, both gave two stars, with Purves less enthralled that the play was “constantly interrupted by full-length renderings of the hackneyed rock covers the Beatles did before songwriting talent flowered” and Spencer calling the production “irritatingly arty” closing by declaring that the script “creaks with cliches, and I left the theatre fervently wishing I’d stayed at home with my Beatles records and my memories.”

Runs to 24 March 2012

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/955

The clunker of the week (a word to the wise): Fit and Proper People (Soho Theatre)

With only a 2.7 star average, no reviewer seemed to be able to get invested in any of the characters of this show about modern football, although everyone loved the production values. Amy Stow (What’s On Stage) calls it: “The entire framework of the play - from the programmes that feature character profiles, the multipurpose, detailed set itself, and the pies-and-pints being sold during the interval - is incredibly well conceived. The problem...is that the play is not.” Fiona Mountford (Evening Standard) says writer Georgia Fitch “ticks off every issue facing the game - bungs and Wags, dubious consortia and shady transfers, sex scandals and substance abuse - and it sounds less like a play and more like a walking op-ed piece from one of the loftier sports pages. We long to be made to care about these characters and this team, but neither the actors nor director Steve Marmion can overcome the script.” Libby Purves also felt Fitch was “too deep into her topic: this sorely lacks the focus of, say, Lucy Prebble’s similarly flashy Enron. At the end of the day, she tries to tackle too much. With nobody really to root for on the pitch, you end up feeling like she’s telling you what you already know.”

Runs to 5 November

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/1018

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The runner up of the week (or another show you should know about): Driving Miss Daisy (Wyndham's Theatre)

Most reviewers of this star-driven revival seemed to have three implicit scoring categories: Script, Acting, and Heavy-Handedness Of Link To Broader Social Context - as well as their own personal weightings they'd assign to each category. Almost without exception, every reviewer began by stating they went into it thinking the script itself was a bit slight. (Although some reviewers were influenced by the film, it was a play - for that matter, a Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play - before it was a film.) Their thoughts after seeing this production? Michael Coveney (What's On Stage): "The play proceeds by numbers, each scene ticking off a point but not quite clinching it; it lacks heart and it lacks soul, always did." Michael Billington (Guardian): "I think now, as I did when I first saw it in 1988, that Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer prize-winning play is not much more than a pleasing anecdote." And then there’s Charles Spencer (Telegraph): “Perhaps I’m getting soft in my old age or, just possibly, wiser. I turned up to Driving Miss Daisy expecting to find the play both slight and sentimental. However, I was amused, gripped and often deeply moved by the piece;” it “now strikes me as a fine and indeed noble piece of work.”

Script scores clear, then. However, no performance which stars Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones is going to live or die based on script alone. Almost every reviewer was fulsome in their praise of both actors. Redgrave “is at her absolute best in this production - steely, witty, eccentric and with moments of deep feeling” declared Spencer, while Jones is "every bit as fine. Watching these two, you are left in no doubt that you are witnessing acting of greatness.” In Billington’s view, Redgrave delivers “a superb piece of acting” which “demonstrates her consummate artistry,” and with Jones opposite, her strength is “artfully matched.” Even Coveney, otherwise unconvinced, conceded the actors were “fairly wonderful.”

For Coveney, the attempt to make a larger point dooms the evening, his two star review seemed largely based on the play’s failure to convince him that “the crumbling hip generation of the late 1950s and early 1960s presaged a change in society for the better.” However, all the other major reviewers gave four stars, implying a consensus view that the personal stories were powerful enough to carry the night. In Billington’s words, “however slight the play,” the performance of its stars “proves the alchemy of acting can have a magical effect.”

Runs to 17 December

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/790

The clunker of the week (a word to the wise): Cool Hand Luke (Aldwych Theatre)

With six different two-star reviews, this premiere inspired a different kind of consensus: if a show is otherwise uncompelling, lead the review with the part where the guy has to mime eating fifty eggs.

With the exception of that generally well-reviewed scene, almost all reviewers agreed that this stage adaptation, based on Donn Pearce's 1965 novel rather than 1967 film starring Paul Newman, suffered from being both poorly conceived and poorly executed. Poorly conceived because the story and characters evolved significantly in the making of the film, making the film a richer jumping-off point for an adaptation than the novel; poorly executed due to a variety of sins including “a skin-deep religiosity” which is “symptomatic of a larger clunkiness” (Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard) and what Paul Taylor (Independent) called “a running commentary via spirituals” which has "a suffocating effect" on the "over-fragmented drama, giving it a phony, sanctimonious cast.”

Taylor did see one bright spot, deeming the production’s flaws unfortunate "not least because Marc Warren is pretty much ideal in the role. He radiates just the kind of laid-back insolence and laconically cocky charisma” that the part requires. Hitchings agreed: “Warren is good value - deadpan when he needs to be, and always watchable. He plays the banjo competently and the mouth organ rather better. But Luke's story doesn't feel truly worth telling.”

Finally, recognizing that theatre must deliver something unique to be worth the effort and cost, Charles Spencer wins our pecuniary hearts with his characteristically blunt assessment: “I cannot see any good reason why anyone would want to stump up West End prices to see this second-rate stage version of a film that is readily available on DVD for less than a fiver.”

Runs to 7 January 2012

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/629

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The runner up of the week (or another show you should know about): The Pajama Men (Charing Cross Theatre)

Nothing else that opened this week achieved even a 3.5-star average, so in the middle spot this week we spotlight The Pajama Men. This is a comedy duo we laughed our head off at over the summer and who are returning to the Charing Cross Theatre in a few months. (I know this reads like an ad; it's not, we promise.) Reviewing it in July, Dominic Maxwell (Times) called their show "a mind-bending mix of acute character comedy, clowning and sci-fi storytelling" with "moment after moment of jaw-dropping comic wonder." This show opened (and sold out) the Soho Theatre's new downstairs comedy space over the summer, then went on to packed houses in Edinburgh. Although there is a loose plot tying together the dozens of characters, involving a cross-galaxy hunt for something or other, there's no mystery why it succeeds, said Maxwell; "it's a feast of comic invention."

Runs 9 Jan to 3 Mar 2012

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/1196

The clunker of the week (a word to the wise): Rock of Ages (Shaftesbury Theatre)

This glam-rock musical got its first reviews this week and instantly became the worst-reviewed show on the site, with a 1.8-star average putting it at number 56 out of 56 in shows currently running with at least one pro review. On top of that achievement, it has created an even odder spectacle for seeming to have made several critics actually angry. Charles Spencer led off his one-star review with the immortal (and now much-Tweeted) sentence "This is as unpleasant a pile of theatrical poo as it has ever been my misfortune to tread in." Specifically, "the jokes are unfunny, the story both predictable and appallingly written, while the acting - with the club's proprietor played by low-grade TV presenter Justin Lee Collins with X-Factor veteran Shayne Ward as the rock god - is dismal." Why the one star rather than zero? "I suppose the undistinguished rock numbers are ground out efficiently enough, but otherwise the show strikes me as having no redeeming merits whatever." And, more to the point, why the vitriol? "I usually have a soft spot for cheesy sleaze, but there is something repellent about this show's leering manner." The common themes of the disdain (since a surprising six pro critics weighed in on this one) seemed twofold: 1) Half of these songs weren't ever popular here (the show is a straight import of a US guilty pleasure, with no changes to include hits from the UK rather than middle America) and 2) the charaterisation of women - the heroine is dumped harshly by a rock star in a bathroom and goes on to become a self-loathing stripper; an aside to the audience refers to the women in the front row as (can this be right?) "rape machines" - is appalling.

Dominic Maxwell (Times) may have missed that line, but still didn't have the patience for the show, despite knowing what he was in for: "I know, I know, it's just a bit of fun, dude." Even trying not to take it at all seriously, "it doesn't sustain two hours. The story is corny, the jokes about how corny the story is aren't enough compensation, and the cast commit the cardinal sin of looking as if they are trying to be funny. There's nothing rock'n'roll about trying so hard to please." Quentin Letts (Daily Mail) gave the highest praise any of our regular reviewers could muster, saying "By the end I was rather exhausted. But I have had worse evenings." To be fair, he says, "Not every theatregoer seeks intellectual stimulation at the end of a working day. Some just want to be amused and given a couple of cold beers. This schlock-rock goofabout may be the thing for them." Finally, there was also a minor Twitter scandal about the hired gun reviewer for the Independent ("the most fun I've had at a musical since Jersey Boys") being uncovered as having no previous writing credential other than being the editor of a porn magazine. Currently booking until October 2012, but watch this space.

Runs to 20 October 2012

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/138

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The runner up of the week (or another show you should know about): The Belle's Stratagem (Southwark Playhouse)

Written by one Hannah Cowley in 1780 and not performed in London since 1888, this play's unearthing by director Jessica Swale has received universal acclaim, with five major four-star reviews and nary an unkind word between them. Henry Hitchings (Evening Standard) called it an "energetic production" of "a genuinely witty comedy of manners" and "a busy, briskly paced show, which engages the audience with impudence." The young cast embraces Swale's "inventive, elegant approach" and her "bright way with period detail as well as an enthusiasm for spirited musical interludes that range from the Spice Girls to Berlin's Take My Breath Away." Finally, "the original and facetious programmes also deserve a mention - further evidence of Swale's ability to inject a sense of fun into places it wouldn't usually be found."

Michael Coveney also found it "a fine and surprising discovery" and gave an appreciative rundown of the cast list that also gives a good sense of the range of activities on offer: "such unexpected delights as Jackie Clune as a scheming Lady Ogle as well as one of the girl band singers in baby bonnets; Robin Soans barking away as Letitia's bone-headed dad in between stints on the harpsichord; and Hannah Spearritt, formerly of S Club 7, simpering sweetly as the newlywed country wife of Joseph McNab's comically paranoid town squire." Swale's "ebullient and handsomely presented" production makes the most of Cowley's sharp, amusing writing, which delivers some "flat-out funny funny explosions, such as Soans's sudden decision to get involved at the ball ("I'll go as a woman!") and the hero's sudden veering into madness" to avoid a persistent male suitor.

Libby Purves (Times) notes that the period piece "would work well down river at the Globe, but how grand to have such quality and fun so close at hand for weary southbound commuters: yours for a tenner right under London Bridge station." She closed with praise which presumably applies to both Ms. Swale and Ms. Cowley, separated by two-hundred-plus years but united in their ability to sidestep convention and deliver something that sparkles: "Theatrical enterprise like this makes you proud to be British."

Runs to 1 October

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/990

The clunker of the week (a word to the wise): My City (Almeida)

For the clunker we need to go with My City. (Grief is also not-yet-good, but it's sold out, whereas the point of the "word to the wise" section is to inform people who might still be making the decision to buy or not to buy.) The assigned culprit in My City - and, indeed, with Grief, and even with Broken Glass - appears to be the established, revered author to whom nobody dared hand a red pencil; in this case, writer/director Stephen Poliakoff. Named writer-in-residence at the National in 1976, when he was just 24, Poliakoff has more recently been working in TV and film and hasn't presented a new stage play in 12 years.

Now comes My City to tell the story of an unusual ex-schoolteacher (Tracey Ullman, in long-awaited return to the British stage) and the nocturnal London she inhabits. Charles Spencer (Telegraph) sighs that "as usual, Poliakoff directs his own work, and he has been too indulgent with his somewhat flabby and anti-climactic material." While the setup raises interesting questions (why is this former head teacher sleeping on a park bench? What is the role of storytelling in passing wisdom down the generations?), "unfortunately, the answers to these questions aren't nearly as startling as one might have hoped, and nor are the stories told in the course of the play quite as enthralling as one would have wished." Indeed, "there are several of those worrying moments that occur in second-rate drama when it becomes impossible to suppress a mixture of boredom and disbelief." Although some moments are "startling and delightful," "there is also much that seems ponderous and preachy, as Poliakoff makes the not entirely original point that good teachers can change young children's lives for the better – and that they aren't always appreciated enough for their efforts."

Jane Edwardes (Time Out) found Poliakoff's take on educational policy to be slightly more deft, if still uncontroversial: "Without hammering the point, the play is in part a rejection of our exam-focused, security-obsessed schools. It is also a tribute to creative teaching." The three ex-educators we meet "devoted their lives to nurturing their pupils, before becoming disillusioned with the profession." Now retired, "they make an unsettling trio, even if the play isn't always as spooky as it would like to be." The action is built around a young pair of twenty-somethings, encountering their former teachers now gone to seed; this is especially shocking to one "who still remembers the primary school teacher who gave him confidence and stirred his imagination with stories of the past." Those stories are meant to surprise and enchant, and one "stirring" anecdote tells of an escape from the Nazis in Vienna in the '30s ... "with the help of a fearsome teacher." However, "there are times when Poliakoff's own ability to tell a good story deserts him." For example: "to reveal that even the smartest of shopping malls has its grotty, pipe-infested backstage areas is to treat the audience like seven year olds."

Runs to 5 November

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/222

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The muddled middle

Among the nine publications and twenty reviewers we cover, for the seven major shows below (about 45 reviews in all), there was only a single five-star review, from Libby Purves of The Times for Ralph Fiennes in Trevor Nunn's production of The Tempest. All review averages came in between 3.0 and 3.7 stars. I hate to come off as negative or snarky about these shows, and am just summing up the written reviews to date - you may well be in the mood for exactly the kind of thing one or more of these productions is going for. Otherwise, you may elect to save your money for a surer bet.

The expensive Broadway transfer: South Pacific at the Barbican, 3.25 stars average. Sarah Hemming (FT) said this production of the musical set during World War II, which won seven Tonys on Broadway, has lost a bit in the transatlantic crossing: "it has all the right moves yet doesn't seem spontaneous enough" and as such "is not quite as enchanting an evening as it promised to be." Runs to 1 October

The movie star showing his stage chops: The Tempest at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, 3.4 stars. Though others thought the production could have used some livening up (while appreciating Ralph Fiennes's performance), Libby Purves (Times) gave all five stars, saying "Without gimmick or self-conscious anachronism, Trevor Nunn drills to the heart of the play and to the moral grandeur of late Shakespeare." Runs to 29 October

The lovingly detailed revival of a midcentury piece: The Kitchen at the National Theatre, 3.7 stars. Caroline McGinn (Time Out) gave four stars to the story of a 1950s restaurant kitchen and its multicultural staff: "[Playwright] Arnold Wesker's doleful and authentic portion of working-class life is impressively spiced up by director Bijan Sheibani and his movement director Aline David" into "a ballet of stress and stainless steel" that in the second half becomes a "highly crafted expression of the rhythm of working life." Runs to 6 November

The celebrated director tackling a big topic: Decade at St Katherine's Docks (produced by the National Theatre), 3.7 stars. Charles Spencer (Telegraph) found director Rupert Goold's set of reflections on September 11, 2001, from multiple perspectives and multiple writers, "a consistently ambitious and inventive production. Unavoidably, this is often a sad and harrowing evening, but it is also illuminated by humour and a strong sense of human resilience." Runs to 15 October

The celebrated young writer tackling a big topic: The Faith Machine at the Royal Court, 3.2 stars. Caroline McGinn enjoyed the previous work of writer Alexi Kaye Campbell, but finds his first commission for a major stage - the story of a young couple who fight over whether he should take on a work project which offends her ideals, as an entree into an exploration of the shrinking role of religion in Western life - to be a slight disappointment: "Intelligent slides into preachy and compassionate becomes hideously mawkish en wandering route to a finale that liberally perfumes [the lead actress] with the odour of sanctity." Runs to 14 October

The "now the story can be told" recounting: No Naughty Bits at the Hampstead, 3.0 stars. Quentin Letts (Daily Mail) wanted more from this account of the difficulties Michael Palin and others faced in getting Monty Python's Flying Circus aired, uncut, on US television in the 1970s: "The play is all right so far as it goes, but its consideration of television's responsibilities is shallow... A play which examined those questions might have been more interesting, and braver." Runs to 15 October

The historically edgy company reapplies its winning formula: The Wild Bride at the Lyric Hammersmith, 3.25 stars. Ian Shuttleworth (FT) is a fan of Kneehigh shows, which apply inventive theatre techniques and magical realism to classic myths and tales, but admits he may have seen one too many of them to continue to be surprised and delighted by the approach: This is a "feminist folk tale" that is "by turns grotesque and majestic, which repeatedly cartoons itself yet finds a deeper truth in that caricaturing. It bears the Kneehigh trademark on all moving parts." Runs to 24 September

The clunker of the week (a word to the wise): The God of Soho (Shakespeare's Globe)

The Globe has had an excellent year already, with its Much Ado About Nothing and Anne Boleyn charming both audiences and critics. This production seems to have lost the majority of the critics. Charles Spencer (Telegraph) declared that "Chris Hannan appears to have written the play while tripping on acid and experiencing a terrifying attack of logorrhoea. Throughout big issues are raised only to be smothered in a manic verbosity that veers between the obscene and the dodgily poetic." Given this assault, "one leaves the theatre feeling drained, rather than enlightened or entertained." Henry Hitchings (Evening Standard) was more even-handed, but was still clear which hand won: "Hannan's writing is now and then inventively salacious. He has the knack of coining disturbingly odd images: one character's conscience is a "moving carpet of cockroaches", while another is condemned for having "the soul of a cocktail pianist". But mostly this is baffling fare." Stepping back from the level of individual phrases, "the characterisation is paper-thin, and it isn't coherent. Instead it presents a succession of half-developed ideas and asks a huge amount of the committed cast." Nina Caplan (Time Out) gave four stars after being able to engage with, and even revel in, the aesthetic to see a point to it all, saying Hannan "dresses a serious question - how to break age-old patterns of belief or behaviour yet retain our sense of self - in sharp suits, salty language and carnival chaos" and furthermore that "The God of Soho' is that rarity, new writing that actually works well in the Globe (in fact, some of its digs at Shakespeare won't be as funny anywhere else)."

Runs to 30 September

See the full list of reviews at
http://stagescan.com/show-details/39

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