Derby AIN'T MISBEHAVIN', devised Richard Maltby, Jr Derby Playhouse: Tkts 01332 363275 Runs: 2 hrs, one interval, till 8th September 2001 Review: Rod Dungate, 1st September A classy performance that challenges you to sit still No story - a whole string of terrific Fats Waller numbers put over by a talented and classy group of actor-singers. Sophisticated and gutsy, they are completely at home in Derby but wouldn't look out of place (as in the second half) LOUNGING AT THE …
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Edinburgh International Festival 2001 THE SEAGULL: by Anton Chekhov, translated into German by Ilma Rakusa Burgtheater, Vienna at King's Theatre, Edinburgh To 1 September Runs 3hrs 5mins One interval TICKETS 0131 473 2000 Review Timothy Ramsden 30 August This is a class act: Luc Bondy's production breathes the kind of life with which Chekhov's first great interpreter Stanislavski astonished Moscow audiences a century ago. He did so through a wealth of lifelike detail. And that's here in Jutta Lampe's old-style …
Edinburgh International Festival 2001 Review: Timothy Ramsden THE NOTEBOOK and THE PROOF Royal Lyceum Theatre De Onderneming, Antwerp 20-25 August. Performing in English De Onderneming ('The Enterprise') offer two 90 minute minimalist plays drawn from a novel trilogy by Hungarian Agota Kristof. War-torn central Europe is the unsettled background for both. The Notebook, about twin brother evacuees, would be the more conventional were it not for the narrative performance style. The four performers (Robby Cleiren, Gunther Lesage, Ryszard Turbiasz and …
Coventry HOLD ON, devised by Andy Hay and Kwame Kwei-Armah Belgrade/ Bristol Old Vic/ Gala Theatre joint prod, on tour Runs: 2 hours, one interval Review: Rod Dungate, 29th August 2001, Belgrade Theatre Soul Music is alive and kicking in this Soul Music revival Ruby Turner is fabulous in this Soul Music compilation show revival. Ruby Turner has a big personality and a beautiful, expressive voice to match. She provides some fine stomping numbers throughout and demonstrates a sassy humour …
THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE, Martin McDonagh RSC: The Swan, Stratford, Tickets 01789 403403 Runs: 2 hours, One interval Review: Rod Dungate, 25th August 2001 Contemporary writing at its very, very finest: a breathtaking production many of us will remember for a long time to come THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE is contemporary writing at its very, very finest - it's audacious, enormously well crafted and dark: it will move you to tears with the rawness of the wounds it exposes and …
RENT, Jonathan Larson Touring: till December 8th, info www.rentontour.com Runs: 2 ¾ hours, one interval Review: Rod Dungate, 23rd August 2001, Leicester Haymarket Pulsating music, high energy - emotional pulses run high Pulsating music, high energy, terrific voices and youthful openness take you on a journey with New York misfits, drop-outs and people with AIDS in this touring production of Jonathan Larson's hit musical RENT. RENT shows us a group of friends living in an ex-industrial attic. They are due …
Edinburgh Festival 2001 Click on Read More for reviews of the three drama events in week one of the 2001 Edinburgh International Festival
London CYMBELINE by William Shakespeare Shakespeare's Globe In rep to 23 September 2001. Runs 3hrs 25mins One interval TICKETS 020 7401 9919/ 020 7316 4703 Review Timothy Ramsden 21 August Small is beautiful at the great Globe. Cymbeline appeared in 1610. A couple of years later Shakespeare gave up the theatre. Writing this play may have helped him decide. The dramatist who had created a series of major comic and tragic characters might well have felt repelled by the dumbed …
London THE FAR SIDE By Courttia Newland Tricycle Theatre to 25 August 2001, then Tabernacle Community Centre, W11 22-27 October 2001 Runs 1hr 45mins One interval TICKETS 020 7328 1000 (Tricycle), 020 7565 7890 (Tabernacle) Review Timothy Ramsden 21 August Rough edged performances with some sharp points. This new play is given by The Post Office Theatre, so criticism could aptly label it first or second class and move on. However, the name applies to the company's base, a former …
Royal National Theatre THE RELAPSE by Sir John Vanbrugh Olivier Theatre In rep to 17 November 2001 Runs 3hrs 25mins One interval TICKETS 020 7452 3000 Review Timothy Ramsden 17 August Restoration revival often sparks but rarely takes fire. This is high quality work. Sue Blane's set recreates a Restoration stage for Vanbrugh's 1696 comedy. Directors Trevor Nunn and Stephen Rayne use this early on to create a free actor/audience relationship that sticks after the fake stage audience have departed …
London LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST by William Shakespeare Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park In rep to 22 August 2001 Runs 2hrs 40mins One interval Tickets 020 7486 2431 Review Timothy Ramsden 20 August Open air Shakespeare catches the joys and woes of love. It's summer in the park but there's an autumnal tinge to the walls secluding the King of Navarre's palace in Kit Surrey's design. This fits a play which hangs between summer and winter, innocence and experience. The first …
London LAST SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE By Peter Quilter New End Theatre, Hampstead To 16 September 2001 Runs 2hrs 30 mins One interval TICKETS 020 7749 0022 Review Timothy Ramsden 15 August Songs brighten this tale of a career's end. Drugs, drink and a West End show make up life for Martha Lewis right now. Audiences adore her, but back at her hotel the bill's unpaid, and there's friction between her gay pianist Anthony and her son and manager Michael. …
Birmingham Morning Glory: Sarah Daniels The Door @ Birmingham Rep Running Time: 2 ½ Hours Review: Rod Dungate, 25th May 2001 Half of Sarah Daniels' new play is worth going a very long way to see. Morning Glory is set on a rough estate in a quiet part of Hertfordshire. Two elderly friends live a peaceful existence when one of them is brutally attacked in a burglary. Both women worked together in the French resistance during World War II. Into …
Chichester THE SECRET RAPTURE by David Hare Minerva Theatre To 1 September 2001 Runs 2 hrs 30 minutes One interval TICKETS 01243 781312 Review Timothy Ramsden 15 August 2001 Some strong performances give shape to Hare's dissection of eighties Britain. Suzan Sylvester is the latest person to play the David Hare Woman. This character, a kind of secular madonna, takes the form here of Isobel. Safely ensconced in an independent business partnership, Isobel feels the full, eventually fatal, force of …
Newbury THE CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick Watermill Theatre. To 15th September Runs 2 hrs 40 minutes One interval TICKETS 01635 46044 Review Timothy Ramsden 15 September 2001 Lively comic invention and a delightful setting make for a fine evening, especially on a fine evening. It's not what's usually meant by site-specific, but you couldn't do this anywhere else. With its stage edged forward into the round, its galleried intimacy exploited and audiences ushered into …
London THE KING STAG by Carlo Gozzi. Translated by Albert Bermel Barbican Theatre To 2 September Runs 1hr 30 mins No interval TICKETS 020 7638 8891 Review Timothy Ramsden 16 August 2001 The eyes have the best of it in American Italian comedy. In four years BITE (Barbican International Theatre Event) has established itself as the major international theatre season in Britain. Directors Graham Sheffield and Louise Jeffreys have presented major productions and valuable offbeat work, showing almost impeccable judgment. …
North Staffordshire PRIVATES ON PARADE by Peter Nichols New Victoria Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme. 20 April-12 May 2001. Runs 2 hours 45 minutes. One interval. Review Timothy Ramsden 4 May Rare, solid revival of Nichols play (with Dennis King songs) which again proves how fine a writer he can be. Malaya, 1948. Britain's post-war rule still seeks to stretch over the waves, while the Communists come out of the jungle woodwork. And keeping the troops something like happy is Major Terri Dennis's …
Touring CRAZY GARY'S MOBILE DISCO by Gary Owen Paines Plough tour 8 February-5 May 2001. Runs 2 Hours. No interval. Review Timothy Ramsden 30 April Three linked monologues reward staying power. The soliloquy's come a long way since Hamlet was wondering whether To Be Or Not. In the 1970s Robert Patrick's prizewinning Kennedy's Children dissected the Camelot heritage through intercut solo speeches from six varied Americans. Most recently Conor MacPherson's Port Authority had three generations of Irishmen interleaving their independent …
Coventry The Dice House: Paul Lucas Adapted from the novel, The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart Belgrade Theatre, Coventry Running Time: 2 hours, One interval Review: Rod Dungate, 17th June 2001 Looking for something different? - This is for you. If you aren't paranoid before you see Paul Lucas's new play at the Belgrade in Coventry, it's quite likely you will be by the time you leave. The action takes place mostly in the Dice Centre, a home for a …
Salisbury THE MISER by Moliere. Salisbury Playhouse 20 April-5 May 2001. Runs 2hr 15min One interval Review Timothy Ramsden 3 May Genuinely funny, modernised Moliere in the round. He's a problem, is Moliere, for the British theatre. That middle-class world with servants, parent power ruling adolescents' lives and half-real, half comic stereotype characters. How does it all translate? Stylishly, in Ranjit Bolt's 'newly revised' version. Like another successful Moliere adaptation, Liz Lochhead's moving of Tartuffe to downmarket 50s Scotland, Bolt …