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HAMPSTEAD THEATRE

Eton Avenue

Swiss Cottage

LONDON NW3  3TU

BOX OFFICE:  020 7722 9301

website: www.hampsteadtheatre.com

 

 

 

THE HOUSE OF BILQUIS BIBI

by Sudhar Bhuchar at Hampstead Theatre

 

Now playing until 14 August

 

 

To celebrate the company's 21st birthday, Tamasha's founders Sudhar Bhuchar and Kristine Landon-Smith have created a radical and quite possibly highly controversial new version of The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca.

 

Where the Spanish playwright satirised out-dated attitudes in his own country almost 80 years ago, Miss Bhuchar who has written the script while her colleague directs, identifies similar issues in Pakistan today.

 

Both plays feature the efforts of a recently-widowed, tyrannical matriarch to prevent her five daughters from fulfilling their destiny and getting married.

 

In this case, Ila Arun plays Bilquis Bibi, who is named for the Queen of Sheba. She is a jealous harridan intent on keeping the girls from any kind of pleasure although the actress gives the impression of the weight of the world on her shoulders, suggesting there may be a heart somewhere beneath the tough exterior.

 

Her rationale for repression is mediaeval in our eyes, the requirement that an upper-class family cannot be seen to allow its daughters to marry beneath their station - and with a single exception everybody in town falls into that category.

 

This unseen Adonis has been promised to stepdaughter Abida, played by Ghizala Avan. She may be rather too old to marry but Abida has everything that her young suitor could wish for i.e. a satisfactory bridal dowry.

 

Having skewed the whole inheritance, it means that none of her four stepsisters has any realistic chance of marriage. To make matters worse, with no alternatives, it is inevitable that they might feel an illicit desire for her fiancé and as a consequence the path of true love is unlikely to run smoothly.

 

In fact, the major dramas of the play centre on the daily hidden passions of Mariam Haque's Sumayyah, appropriately the first martyr in Islam and younger sister Aroosa, the bride in name if not reality, played by Youkti Patel.

 

Indira Joshi in the role of batty old grandmother Mehroonisa proves herself to be something of a seer. Following her predictions, the Spanish tragedy plays itself out to an equally convincing Pakistani denouement.

 

In addition to the main players, Rina Fatania, playing ironically named Bushra or good news, is particularly notable as a supposedly loyal family retainer who never seems happier than when delivering morsels of scandal with inordinate relish.

 

The major problem that many audience members will face is a difficulty in understanding the speeches of several actresses. A combination of various unfamiliar accents, speech in the local tongue (Urdu?) and a failure to project adequately make intelligibility a serious problem, particularly when Bilquis herself is speaking. This means that those who are not comfortable with the accents and do not know that the original might struggle to follow the plotting.

 

That having been said, the story in this adaptation is faithful to Lorca and as such, makes a powerful statement about the repressive attitudes that traditional Muslims still hold towards their women.

 

Therefore, for providing a novel reading of a classic play and making an issue that is already causing headlines on a regular basis a subject for intelligent theatrical treatment, Tamasha are to be congratulated.

 

 

 

Reviews by Philip Fisher for Theatreworld Internet Magazine


TRICYCLE THEATRE

Kilburn High Road (nearest underground - Kilburn)

BOX OFFICE:  020 7328 1000

 

 

Reviews by Philip Fisher for Theatreworld Internet Magazine Internet Magazine

 

 


MENIER CHOCOLATE FACTORY

51-53 Southwark Street SE1 1TE

Box Office: 020 7378 1712

 

 

 

 

ASPECTS OF LOVE

 

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber

 

Lyrics by Don Black and Charles Hart

 

Directed by Trevor Nunn

 

 

Now Playing at the Menier Chocolate Factory until 26th September

 

 

It’s back and yes, “love, love changes everything”!

 

This is a wonderful opportunity to see a piece of musical theatre that was a big hit first time round (about 20 years ago).

 

Having not seen it before I would describe it as a cross between “A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC”, the book “REBECCA” and the film “OBSESSION” with a dash of “THE SOUND OF MUSIC”. The story, based on a book by David Garnett, is very French with wives befriending their husband’s mistresses and husbands happily living under the same roof as their wife and her lover. There’s lots of glugging back of wines and spirits and puffing on gauloises while everybody nods and agrees that “life goes on, love goes free”.

 

The two main characters, who have the sweetest, most enchanting voices are; Alex Dillingham (Michael Arden) a 19 year old English boy on the cusp of becoming a man and Rose Vibert (Katherine Kingsley) an older actress. It’s 1947 Paris, she’s starving and he’s got money (well, his roué Uncle has) so off they toddle, having met each other 15 minutes ago, down to “his” villa (his Uncle’s) in the Pyrenees. It’s all blissfully wonderful for about 10 minutes then it all goes horribly wrong pretty much until the end of the story. But just go with it, you’ll like it.

 

The singing and music are heartbreakingly soft and melodious. I couldn’t help but be moved even if I did want to slap a couple of the characters. I wanted to grab Alex and shake him and scream “If it ain’t working – move on, plenty more fish in the sea”. But I guess this was all set pre-internet dating.

 

It’s a brilliant production with a wonderful ensemble cast directed by the ever talented Trevor Nunn.

 

A must see for anybody who loves musical theatre.

 

 

Reviews by Sarah Monaghan for Theatreworld Internet Magazine


ALMEIDA THEATRE

Almeida Street, London N1 1TA

BOX OFFICE: (020) 7359 4404

 

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

 

by Ingmar Bergman,

 

Adapted by Jenny Worton

 

 

Now playing at the Almeida Theatre until 31st July

 

Jenny Worton's stage adaptationa of Bergman's dark psychological drama is somewhere on a line between Ibsen and Festen, two Almeida favourites.

 

The first sign of things to come is Tom Scutt's set, which comprises washed out shades of grey. This is the “holiday island paradise” location for a fated family reunion from which no good can ever come.

 

The central character is Karin, a seemingly happy, highly intelligent young wife played with absolute veracity by TV’s Jane Eyre, Ruth Wilson, under the direction of Michael Attenborough. The laid back surface hides a secret, as the pretty holidaymaker suffers from an unnamed, hereditary illness that has already claimed her mother and threatens her own sanity.

 

The symptoms are not pleasant. Karin shows signs of being a manic depressive and has religious crucifixion visions so convincing that the real world becomes no more likely than her imaginary one.

 

If it were merely a portrait of a soul in torment, this would be hard enough to take, but Ingmar Bergman then shows the effect that her condition has on Karin's family.

 

Her weak-willed novelist father seems to have spent most of his life in escapist denial. Ian McElhinney makes it clear that David is a lily-livered man but even so, he is one of the most important port of call as Karin weathers her storms.

 

It is the other two characters who are most wronged. Justin Salinger plays Karin's doctor husband, Martin. This character who was presumably at least partly modelled on Bergman himself is kindness personified but as such receives the worst of the abuse, since this illness not so much talks as shouts.

 

Finally, there is Dimitri Leonidas looking rather too old as repressed 16-year-old kid brother Maxie. He has to try to come to terms with his own teen problems, an unloving father and sexual insecurity, at the same time as attempting to handle his sister's unpredictable needs and wild moodswings.

 

Even for those that have never seen the film, the ending of this highly intense 90 minutes may be inevitable from the start but still shocks.

 

Through a Glass Darkly does not make for comfortable viewing. With the knowledge that the story is based on Ingmar Bergman's own marriage, this dark 90 minute long play takes on a chilling relevance for anyone interested in deep psychological problems and their impact on loved ones. It is also to be commended for showcasing Ruth Wilson's undoubted stage talent, most recently seen when she played opposite the award-winning Rachel Weisz in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Donmar.

 

 

 

 

Reviews by Philip Fisher for Theatreworld Internet Magazine

 


FINBOROUGH THEATRE

The Finborough Arms Pub

Finborough Road, SW10

(5 minutes from Earl’s Court & West Brompton Stations)

BOX OFFICE:  0870 4000 838

 

LINGUA FRANCA

By Peter Nichols

 

Now playing until 7th August

 

 

Lingua Franca is billed as a ‘world premiere’, although when precisely it was penned by Peter Nichols isn’t entirely clear. What is clear is that Nichols has gone back to his early life and written this play based on his time teaching English to Italians in Florence sometime after the war.

 

His subject is, largely, what makes us different and what makes us the same. Nationality, belief, politics? Or just the fact of being human?

 

Steven Flowers (played with a lot of energy by Chris New) is the young man from Swindon, an ex-Communist and war veteran despite his years, thrust into the heady atmosphere of a sultry and historic Florence, still recovering from the war. He falls in love with the city, and the stalwart of the school, Peggy Carmichael (Charlotte Randle) a lonely girl whose nerves are as taught as guitar strings, falls in love with him.

 

Flowers doesn’t make a good start, insulting his pupils by calling them children, but (with two hours still ahead of us) he manages to avoid the sack. Instead, the luscious Heidi (Natalie Walker) arrives with her head still full of Nazi reverberations and the war (‘we could have shared Africa!’), and proceeds to offer Steven a heady cocktail of Aryan vitality.

 

In amongst the newcomers, we have to add Irena (a supremely stately Rula Lenska) a Russian Jew who married an Italian, the Australian lesbian Madge (Abigail McKern) who will take on anything and anyone, and the saintly Jestin Overton (Ian Gelder) an older Englishman who has never married, never troubled to learn a foreign language and whose atheism rests on a view that art is a better teacher than religion.

 

They have a lot to discuss, these people, as Overton sways from gallery to gallery, attempting to embody the grace he sees in pictures, as Heidi rushes from bed to bed, and as the not altogether saintly Gennaro (Enzo Cilenti) tries to hold everything together.

 

Flowers resorts to teaching his hapless students popular, and less popular, songs, the stately Irena and the serene Jestin hold conversations, Madge tries to teach Spanish without knowing the language.

 

Something has to give here, and the something is the patience of one of the students, and almost simultaneaously Peggy’s nerves. Both conspire to bring about the end of the institution.

 

This is a rites of passage play in part, and you can see why the pressure-cooker atmosphere in that wonderful city, at that time of Nichols’ life, would have left him in awe. I’m not sure however, how much the play succeeds beyond that. Lots of themes wash about, but the not totally likeable Flowers and his dictum that the Americans are going to dominate the world, isn’t entirely convincing.

 

It is beautifully played in the most part though, and seeing Rula Lenska on top form is wonderful.

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews by Michael Spring for Theatreworld Internet Magazine

 

 


THE GATE THEATRE

(Notting Hill Gate)

BOX OFFICE:  020 7229 0706

 

 

 

Reviews by Lucy Popescu for Theatreworld Internet Magazine


 

 

KING'S HEAD THEATRE

Islington

BOX OFFICE:  020 7226 1916

Underground : Angel (Northern Line)

Highbury and Islington (Victoria Line)

Reviews by Clive Burton for Theatreworld Internet Magazine


THE OVAL HOUSE

52-54 Kennington Road, London SE11

(Oval underground)

BOX OFFICE: 020 7582 7680

Oval House Theatre Upstairs / Downstairs

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews by Michael Spring for Theatreworld Internet Magazine

 

 


THE BUSH THEATRE

Shepherds Bush Green

London W12

BOX OFFICE:  020 7610 4224

e-mail: info@bushtheatre.co.uk

 

The Bush Theatre is above the O'Neill's pub on the corner of

Shepherds Bush Green and Goldhawk Road W12

 

 

 

Reviews by Lucy Popescu for Theatreworld Internet Magazine


LYRIC HAMMERSMITH

 King Street

Hammersmith

 

BOX OFFICE:  0871 22 117 22

 www.lyric.co.uk

 



 

 


Reviews by Lucy Popescu for Theatreworld Internet Magazine

 

 


NEW END THEATRE

Hampstead

BOX OFFICE: 0870 033 2733

(Nearest Underground: Hampstead [Northern Line] - 2 minutes walk

 

 

 


 

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