Tag: west end

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Theatre review

Half a Sixpence, Noel Coward Theatre

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This is a revival of a 50 year old show. It has been done with so much love and a nice attention to detail.

There are new songs and a tidied up storyline but it still does not feel current and it doesn’t attempt to.

It looks and feels like an early 1960’s musical and that is its charm.

It has the early 60s obsession with class, it has the big boisterous dance numbers of the time and it has some great songs. There is an innocence and optimism about this show that one doesn’t find in contemporary musicals.

The whole cast are fantastic but Charlie Stemp is outstanding as Arthur Kipps. How he manages to maintain that energy throughout the whole show is remarkable.

Some of the songs have been moved around and there have been new ones added. “Pick Out a Simple Tune” is a particularly memorable new song. Moving “Flash, Bang, Wallop” to the close is a master stroke, finishing the show on a glorious high.

This is a great show with a wonderful finale and I will be amazed if it does not win a host of awards in the coming season.

Go see it while you have the chance – you will leave the theatre elated!

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Theatre review

Dead Funny, Vaudeville Theatre, 2016/7

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24 years on is a difficult time at which to attempt the revival of a play. It’s long enough ago for the jokes and attitudes to appear dated and out of touch, yet not distant enough for us to see the play as an interesting period piece, or for us to indulge the mores of a different society.

This show has a great cast and they perform very well. The play itself has not aged well. The storyline and many of the lines feel old, the characters are not developed. The female roles in particular are one dimensional stereotypes – the hysterical woman desperate for a baby and the flirtatious, glamorous eye candy. There is an inherent sexism throughout the play that is uncomfortable to sit through now.

The male characters are caricatures too and we have come to expect more subtlety from the dialogue. The parts of the play that set out to shock us are no longer outrageous, the tasteless joke was neither shocking nor funny and the nudity was superfluous.

The acting was of a very high standard though, you could tell that Steve Pemberton loved the play and Ralf Little and Katherine Parkinson were a joy to watch.

It is very possible that in another 25 years this play will be an antique heirloom but currently, it is just out dated and out of fashion.

 

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Restaurant review

The Forest on the Roof, Selfridges, London

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I have just been to the winter incarnation of the forest on the roof, on the top floor of Selfridges. The entrance is beautiful and Christmassy, with glitterballs and tree branches sprayed silver.

The food is good quality but overpriced (e.g. £14 for a hamburger and another £4 for the chips to go with it). The choice of beers was limited, although there was a good selection of wines.

It was packed on a Monday afternoon as I guess it will be up to Christmas and through the sale season afterwards. The tables are far too close together making it difficult for the customers and the waiters to pass through.

The restaurant is set under a long, narrow awning with a roll down transparent screen to protect you from the elements. It was a sunny day and the sun streamed through into diners’ eyes and the staff had no way of preventing this.  It was noticeably chilly as the sun went down. The main view is the roof of Primark across the street.

All in all, I would say the experience was less “Forest on the Roof” and more “Lunch in a lean-to”.

It is certainly not up to Selfridges normally high standards, I can only imagine that this is a venue more suited to the summer.

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Attractions Exhibition

The Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly, London

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The Royal Academy of Arts’ gallery is on Piccadilly, it is directly across the road from Fortnum & Mason.

The Academy was founded in 1768 by King George III. They have many varied exhibitions throughout the year. These include single artist exhibitions, for example, Hockney and Ai Wei Wei have been on so far this year. There are also themed shows containing many different artists. “Painting the Modern Garden” included works by Kandinsky, Monet and Matisse. Next years “Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932” will have Chagall, Rodchenko and Eisenstein among others.

The highlight of their year is the Summer Exhibition, on open submission exhibition, to showcase the talent of emerging and established artists. The first one was in 1769 and it has run every one of the 248 years since. This is a huge and wide ranging exhibition usually holding over 1000 pieces, of every shape, size and medium. Most of the works are for sale differing in price from a hundred pounds to hundreds of thousands.

The gallery is nominally free, but most of the exhibitions are charged, so choose what you wish to see.

The Summer Exhibition is good value, although I take off the voluntary donation and only buy one list of works for the whole party, the cost of these is automatically added unless you ask for them to be removed.

The Royal Academy is  self funded so do as your conscience sees fit!  Personally, I don’t feel too guilty as they charge 30% commission on any work sold.

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Film Review

Wiener-Dog (dir. Todd Solondz) 2016

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This is a comedy written and directed by Todd Solondz. If you know his name and like his movies you will know not to expect uplifting and light hearted comedy, and this one is bleak even by his standards.

It consists of four short stories about people whose lives are affected by coming into contact with a Dachshund. It is well written, beautifully observed and has some great performances. I thought Ellen Burstyn and Julie Delpy were particularly good.

However, I really did not enjoy the film. Almost every character is cruel, self-serving or damaged and the humour comes from the dysfunctional way they deal with their lives. This is certainly a movie where we are laughing at them – not with them. Most of the laughs fall into the “so horrible it’s funny” category. The fact that that the film is so well made and the characters and situations are so realistically handled, make the comedy darker. I laughed rarely, and when I did, I disliked myself for doing so.  I left the cinema feeling depressed and dispirited.

It is said that “Great Art” is any which makes you feel strong emotions, either good or bad. In that case, this is “Great Art” but, if I were given the hour and a half back, I would choose not to spend it in that cinema.

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Restaurant review

The Gallery, Fortnum & Mason, Piccadilly, London

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This restaurant is quite modest in terms of décor, with its unvarnished tables and plain wooden floor, which in Fortnum and Mason terms is definitely understated. I have seen this listed as a low cost restaurant, but I couldn’t say that I agree with that description.  I suspect that you could get away with £25 per person if you were to choose the absolute cheapest starter and main course, but you couldn’t have a dessert or wine and you could certainly not drink tea.  I noticed that tea was £8 and while I have no doubt that it is lovely tea and will come in a pretty teapot, it is hardly economical.

However, the restaurant is attractive with a view over Jermyn Street out through the window and a view over the sweet displays when you look in towards the shop. Everything is very high quality, as you would expect; pretty menu, nice napkins, good cutlery and crockery. The service is excellent.

The food is lovely too, the ingredients are top notch and each dish is beautifully prepared and presented. The beef was perfectly cooked and the gravy was rich and indulgent. So, although this is not somewhere to go if you are on a tight budget, it does serve a great lunch and I recommend it if you feel like a treat.

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Exhibition

82 portraits and 1 still life, David Hockney, Royal Academy, 2016 London

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This exhibition is like a scientific experiment into the nature of portrait painting.

All the portraits are exactly the same size and shape. They are all full body portraits of a subject sitting in the same, yellow cushioned, wooden chair. They all have roughly the same, green and blue, background and each one was painted over the course of 3 days. They are all very recent – some only painted in February and March this year. There are 83 paintings crammed together in 3 small rooms, the walls painted in a matt magenta. A couple of people are pictured twice and one person three times over the course of the exhibition.

The individual portraits themselves are very good; Hockney is a fine portrait artist, but this is a single piece of work and it is seeing the whole exhibition as a unit that transforms this into an exceptional show. The uniformity of the portraits in terms of size, colour, and time, makes one notice the differences between them; the pose, the clothes, the gaze.

I don’t think of it as 83 individual pictures, I see it as one portrait of 83 individual sittings.

This is David Hockney at his best; confident, relaxed, colourful, witty and experimental.

I left very happy.

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Film Review

Star Trek Beyond (dir. Justin Lin) 2016

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Star Trek Beyond is a mixture of good and not so good.

Let’s get the worst out of the way first – the film is too long for the very flimsy story, 20 minutes could be cut, all of it from the battle near the start of the movie, which was predictable and repetitive. There are huge holes in the plot which are explained away by ridiculous technical gobbledygook, although some of this is done in a knowing, tongue-in-cheek way which at least makes it funny.

Humour is one of the good points of the film, it doesn’t take itself too seriously and it is the funniest of the franchise so far. The script is excellent, there are some really good lines and the resolution of the film is both clever and witty. The special effects and the acting are good. I really liked Sofia Boutella’s character.

We are now on the third film into the reboot series and we already know all the main crew members. This film develops and handles the relationships between these characters very well, and we really do care about them by the end of this movie. It is genuinely sad to think that Anton Yeltsin won’t be there if there is another in the franchise.

Even though this is not one of the best Star Trek films in terms of plot or storyline; it is one of the best for humour and character development, and I will certainly be coming back to see what happens to them in the next instalment.

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Exhibition

Georgia O’Keeffe, Tate Modern, London, 2016

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Georgia O’Keeffe at the Tate Modern is a very big exhibition. There are thirteen room filled with paintings from every period of her career and there are also some works by her friends and collaborators. It was a nice, unexpected bonus to see some Americana by Ansell Adams included in the show.

It is arranged mostly chronologically and with so many pieces on show, you can watch her style developing through the decades. The earliest pieces are from the 1910s and you can see a hint of the time in them. The 1920s pictures and the New York ones have the slightest art deco feel and her ability with colour is profound even from the earliest days.

The 1920s,1930s flower pictures are probably her most famous and they look so modern, vibrant and current even now that it is difficult to imagine how new they must have seemed 80 odd years ago.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s move to New Mexico brought another complete change of style. the only common factor being the inspired use of colour throughout. There are also series from the 1940s and 1950s where some are more minimalist in nature and others are figurative.

The latest pictures date from the 1960s and you can also see the times reflected here.

Initially, I thought that the entrance fee, around £16, was pretty steep for a single show. However, it is probably one of the largest shows that I have ever seen, you won’t really feel like seeing much else in the Tate Modern on the same day, and the quality of the paintings is such that, on balance, it is good value for money. There is also enough depth to the exhibition that you can really see the arc of her development as you walk round the show and it is very interesting to watch those changes over the course of such a long, talented career.

Categories
Theatre review

Into the Woods, Menier Chocolate Factory, London

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The Menier Chocolate Factory has a history of showing great productions of Sondheim musicals, so I went in with high expectations. This American troupe has transferred here, from off Broadway, having had runs in Princeton and San Diego before that.

They bring a stripped down, lo-fi interpretation of “Into the Woods” that is perfectly suited to the intimate surroundings of this theatre. The whole show, including music, is performed by 11 actors and musicians multitasking, with limited props and set changes. The resourcefulness of the company turn this into an asset and the simple setting allows one to notice new details in the lines and new depths in the characters. All of the players are great, but Andy Grotelueschen is fabulous as both the cow (!) and as Rapunzel’s prince. Patrick Mulrayn, who plays Jack, can belt out a tune too.

The set is quirky and funny, it looks like the inside of a piano reimagined as a Victorian dolls house. I particularly liked the piano keys surrounding the stage.

Shows from the Chocolate Factory often transfer to the West End, and this one surely deserves to, you don’t often see the whole audience stand to clap at the end of a show in London – but don’t wait until it does transfer before you go because this theatre is the  perfect setting for such a gem.