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| | | Spike review – capering tribute summons the wise-cracking Goon's spirit | | by Brian Logan Feb 1, 2022 | | Watermill theatre, Newbury
Fast-paced portrait of Spike Milligan hurls us between the comic’s anarchic Goon Show sketches, cartoonish clashes with the BBC and the trauma of war Spike Milligan spent the 1940s fighting the war – and the 50s fighting the BBC. That’s the argument ventured by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman in their play about the tormented comedian, who channelled his combat experiences into that “shellshock on radio” sensation, The Goon Show. Spike focuses on the early years of Milligan’s still-fragile success. Audiences love the show, it makes his co-stars Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers famous – but Milligan struggles with overwork, PTSD symptoms and the open disdain of the BBC’s top brass. It’s a sympathetic portrait, then, of the Anglo-Irishman, the more so for John Dagleish’s likably hangdog turn in the title role. It’s Milligan with a pinch of Harry Corbett thrown in: shabby, chippy and unable to stop cracking wise, even when there’s a noose around his neck. Director Paul Hart summons the spirit of the Goons with a fast-paced, capering production, one short scene after another hurling us from the Grafton Arms back to the battlefields of Monte Cassino and forward to the recording studios of the BBC. Continue reading... | | | | | Theodora review – bombs, a brothel and a brilliant cast | | by Tim Ashley Feb 1, 2022 | | Royal Opera House, London
Katie Mitchell’s modern-day staging of Handel’s oratorio is probing but problematic. The cast, however, is one of the finest ever assembled for the work Handel considered Theodora the greatest of his oratorios. Few today would disagree with him, though it was surprisingly unsuccessful at its Covent Garden premiere in 1750, and the Royal Opera’s new production effectively marks its overdue homecoming. Notoriety, however, began to cling to Katie Mitchell’s staging well before opening night, thanks to trigger warnings about “explicit violence” on the Royal Opera website, and the much reported employment of intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien to ensure the performers felt comfortable with the sex scenes. All this has to some extent been a bit of a distraction, as the production is for the most part a reined-in affair, and neither particularly explicit (either sexually or in its depiction of violence) nor quite as inflammatory as anticipated. Mitchell’s stance is typically probing and interrogative. Distrusting Handel’s supposed depiction of his heroine as stoic or passive (with which not everyone would agree) Mitchell makes her a fundamentalist revolutionary rather than a martyr and relocates the oratorio to a modern-day alternative reality, setting it in an embassy that has been infiltrated by Christian resistance members bent on destroying the male-dominated pagan Roman system. Continue reading... | | | | | A Violent Man review – hardnut prison drama is guilty as charged | | by Leslie Felperin Feb 1, 2022 | | Craig Fairbrass’s impressive screen presence as a longtime convict carries this shadowy take on life behind bars Craig Fairbrass (Villain, Muscle, Rise of the Footsoldier franchise) is an actor who may lack range but has an undeniable screen presence. He emits an almost radioactive glow with his hulking, jolie-laide physiognomy, amplified by an abraded, East End baritone that seldom rises above a menacing whisper. That charisma goes a long way in this prison drama, written and directed by Ross McCall, which consists of a weary procession of scenes in which Fairbrass’s longtime convict Steve Mackelson growls, glowers and recites monologues full of self-serious pauses about prison life and how hard he thinks he is. All this seems to take place in one or two rooms in one of Her Majesty’s establishments where budget cuts appear to have deprived the cells of lightbulbs. A moderate amount of backlighting is supplied by a strip of window high in one black wall. No wonder the supporting officers (SOs) can never tell what’s going on. The deprivations also extend to the prisoners’ and support officers’ language, worn back to the stubs of self-expression so that they can only speak in prison slang (“tooled up”, “burner”, “peas” and the like) or the word “cunt”, which in this world is so ubiquitous it’s practically a pronoun. Continue reading... | | | | | |
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