THEGAYUK

Day: 24 July 2019

  • The Night of the Iguana REVIEW: What happens in the 2 hours and 35 minutes of this show? Not a whole lot!

    The Night of the Iguana REVIEW: What happens in the 2 hours and 35 minutes of this show? Not a whole lot!

    ★★★☆☆ | The Night of the Iguana

    (c) Brinkhoff.Moegenburg

    The Night of the Iguana was never really Tennessee Williams’ best work, and a new theatre production in London adds very little to it.

    Now playing at the Noel Coward Theatre, movie star Clive Owen plays defrocked priest Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton in the film) who escapes to a Mexican lodge deep in the forest to while away his time. Others in the lodge include the owner Maxine (Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn playing Ava Gardner’s role in the film), Hannah- a middle-aged single woman (Lia Williams), with her very old grandfather Nonno (Daniel Glover), and a German family who keeps on going back and forth from the lodge to the beach who in their quirky way liven up this production.

    So what happens in the 2 hours and 35 minutes of this show? Not a whole lot! The most dramatic moment comes when a thunderstorm literally starts dripping buckets of rain onto the stage, leaving the cast scrambling for cover.

    It’s a fantastic effect that you would think would set the mood for an even more exciting second half, but it’s all dialogue between Shannon and Hannah that leads to a bit of sexual tension but not enough to make this show sexy and exciting. Director James MacDonald limits the actors to a very small confined space on stage (though there is a cleverly designed staircase that goes down to an unseen beach), and while the rest of the cast are quite good, Owen is just OK, but there is really nothing spectacular about this production.

    Perhaps it’s one for hardcore Williams, Owens, or Breaking Bad fans.

    The Night of the Iguana plays at the Noel Coward Theatre until 28th September 2019, Book tickets here.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | The Girl On The Train – Duke of York’s Theatre, London

    THEATRE REVIEW | The Girl On The Train – Duke of York’s Theatre, London

    ★★★ | The Girl On The Train – Duke Of York’s Theatre

    Based on the best selling book by Paula Hawkins, The Girl On The Train stars Samantha Womack (Eastenders) as Rachel Watson, a troubled woman who romanticises about a couple she sees from her commuter train window every day, as she imagines the life she could have had. When one of the couple goes missing, she finds herself drawn into the mystery; but the gaps in her memory and her inability to separate out reality from her fantasy leads to her becoming a suspect in the woman’s disappearance.

    Samantha Womack is entertaining as Rachel and she is ably supported by a small but proficient cast. The set changes are fairly slick, the set is sufficiently detailed, and the lighting and sound design all compliment the mood of the piece.

    But for a thriller to work, it’s the story that counts, and over the course of the first act, the plot developed nicely and pulled in the audience, with a narrative which blurred fact and fiction, and imagination and reality; but as the second act unfolded the story became increasingly convoluted with a few too many red herrings and clumsy plot twists for it to maintain its momentum.

    Having not read the book or seen the film, I’m not sure whether fans of either will find enjoyment or disappointment in this play, but as a standalone piece of theatre, it is competently presented and entertaining enough, but not a show which I would imagine will go on to become a classic.

    The Girl on the Train is at Duke Of York’s Theatre until the 17th August 2019. Book tickets now

    This review was taken from a showing at Sheffield and does not account for any cast changes or changes to the direction since then.*

  • Was the “unnamed gay footballer” Twitter account a hoax?

    Was the “unnamed gay footballer” Twitter account a hoax?

    People are questioning whether the unnamed gay footballer Twitter account was all a hoax, after the account goes offline.

    pixel2013 / Pixabay

    Twitter users are now questioning whether an account which was purportedly run by a UK Championship footballer, who was primed to come out as gay, was all a hoax after the account mysteriously disappeared from Twitter.

    The account which has been followed by well over 48,000 people is no longer available to view and all the Tweets have been deleted. The account had followed over 1400 people, including all the major LGBT+ news outlets.

    For weeks the account holder had said that he would come out as gay, becoming the first footballer to come out as gay, whilst still in contract since Justin Fashanu in 1990.

    The account holder originally set the date of 24th July to reveal who he was, however the night before he was due to officially come out a message was published which said, he didn’t feel strong enough to come out.

    Disappointed Twitter users are now questioning whether the account was a hoax.

    https://twitter.com/BonymaenS/status/1153924530462691328

    https://twitter.com/carlcnash/status/1153775805211774977

    https://twitter.com/leehunt4/status/1153788055871844352

    https://twitter.com/patsyincline/status/1153901484574224386