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Tag: Garrick Theatre

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Noises Off, London

    THEATRE REVIEW | Noises Off, London

    (C) PR SUPPLIED

    ★★★★ | Noises Off, Garrick Theatre, London

    The production of ‘Nothing on’ in Western-Super-Mare is now playing at the Garrick theatre in a new production of Noises off.

    Confused? Dont be. We are treated to the show, as well as the backstage antics of the cast, in this hilarious and new production of Noises Off – a show that has been around since 1982. It’s a farce, with lots of physical humour which the cast amazingly carry out. They are all amazing and all have impeccable timing.

    We are at the Grande Theatre in the play within a play, and the show we are seeing involves a lot of tooing and froing. We are watching a rehearsal of ‘Nothing On,’ and the cast seem to be hopelessly not getting it. The director (Lloyd Owen) is at his wits end, but the actors continue to act out the plot, which is just as zany as the show. (It involves two couples and a very large house with a maid (Meera Syal) who goes about her business while mayhem goes on around her).

    Then after the interval, the set is turned around so we are now looking behind the stage but it’s still the same scene we just saw in the first act – so get so see what is happening backstage at the same time. Genius! The actors at this point are performing twice – and they do it brilliantly! Especially the contact lens scene that was in the first act and it is also actually happening backstage – it boils all to great laughter!<

    And act 3 carries on with the show that we saw in the first act and the physical humour is ramped up (way up when Daniel Rigby falls down a flight of stairs. God bless him, and the other actors who have to do this 8 times a week.

    Noises off is a play within a play, a farce within a farce, and one off the most hilarious shows you will see this year, or any  year.

    Noises Off plays at the Garrick Theatre until 4 January 2020 noisesoffplay.com

  • Bitter Wheat Review: Downward spiral that becomes shockingly dumb

    Bitter Wheat Review: Downward spiral that becomes shockingly dumb

    ★ | Bitter Wheat

    (C) PR SUPPLIED

    John Malkovich and David Mamet attempt to tell a story about a Hollywood mogul and his downfall but it falls completely flat in the new West End Show Bitter Wheat.

    Malkovich, star of screen and stage (70 films in total including Empire of the Sun and Burn After Reading), and playwright David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed the Plow) are where the blames lie in a show that tries to deal with an issue that is very timely but in this stage production is poorly executed. Malkovich is super-rich movie mogul Barney Fein who thinks and makes decisions with his nether regions. All likeliness to Harvey Weinstein is purely coincidental (!!).

    In this satire that is far from funny, Fein’s life is managed by his loyal assistant (Doon Mackichan).

    He even relies on her to get a gift for his mother’s birthday (his mother owns the company) – strangely the same scarf she got her the year before. And then there is another assistant (Alexander Arnold) who has no other function then just to walk in from time to time (including at the end where he announces that there is a man with a gun in the lobby – the same man who kills Feins’ mother in the second half – not shown) – all very silly and unbelievable. But before we get to this we are witness to an attempt by Fein to get young British-Korean actress and Cambridge grad Yung Kim Li (Ioanna Kimbook), who’s flown in to meet him, into a sexual liaison (all she wants is to eat after a long flight).

    Fein first asks her for a massage, and then finally asks her if she would watch him take a shower.

    It’s all very creepy and weird. And the show, at only 110 minutes long, (it also has an interval,) continues on a downward spiral that becomes shockingly dumb and just as quick as Weinteins’ downfall. Malkovich is just not convincing enough and delivers his lines like he’s reading them, while Mamet, who wrote and directed, knows better than to stage a show this bad.

    Avoid at all costs.

    Bitter Wheat plays at the Garrick Theatre until 14th September, book tickets here

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Rip It Up, Garrick Theatre, London

    THEATRE REVIEW | Rip It Up, Garrick Theatre, London

    ★★★ | Rip it Up

    The 60s are back in the West End, and add a lot of dancing, throw in a few handsome pop stars, and what you have is an evening of very very light theatre.

    Rip it Up, now playing at the Garrick Theatre, throws into the mix the best songs from the 60’s with beautiful choreography (by Gareth Walker, who is also the Director), and starring four former Strictly Come Dancing Contestants, and heartthrobs.

    Louis Smith MBE (former Olympic gymnast and all around hunk), Aston Merrygold (former member of the X-Factor group JLS), Harry Judd (drummer in the worldwide famous pop group McFly), and last but not least Jan McGuiness (from The Wanted). These men, along with a bevy of young and sexy backup dancers, give it their all with fancy dance moves and upbeat music. But the best part of the show is the amazing singing by Jill Marie Cooper and Ant Brant. Cooper wins the audience over in her renditions of songs from Dionne Warwick to Jefferson Airplane, which lifts this show up a couple notches for without them this would’ve been just another jukebox musical without the jukebox.

    All of the four male leads are fine, but they are not allowed to individually shine that much. Merrygold only gets to sing a couple songs, while we are treated to an all too short gymnastics routine by Smith (though luckily for he spends most of the time in the show either topless or wearing tight clothes). He is also a very graceful dancer. Judd is allowed a one minute drum solo (the audience wanted more), while McGuiness really doesn’t seem to offer much, though he tries his darndest to keep up with the dance moves.

    Emcee Cavin Cornwall does a fine job guiding the audience through the different musical sounds of the 60s, though he wobbles horribly through ‘Heard if Through the Grapevine‘. Videos of Lulu, Tony Blackburn, designer Zandra Rhodes and the indelible Dionne Warwick tell us what is was really like in the 60s – show us don’t tell us! And Lulu actually comes on a few too many times.

    But ultimately Rip it Up will only appeal to fans of the X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing (of which all four stars have danced in). I can see this show selling out on the UK tour, but for a West End stage, it doesn’t quite feel right.

    Rip it Up plays at The Garrick Theatre until June 2, 2019

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Young Frankenstein, Garrick Theatre, London

    ★★★★★ | Young Frankenstein

    THEATRE REVIEW | Young Frankenstein, Garrick Theatre, London

    The classic comedy Young Frankenstein has finally made it’s way to the West End, and it’s just as funny, or perhaps even funnier, than the hit 1974 film.

    Mel Brooks, still kicking around at the age of 91, directed and co-wrote (along with Gene Wilder) the Oscar-nominated film. Brooks wrote the music and lyrics of the stage version which had it’s Broadway debut in 2007 to rave reviews and several Tony award nominations. Its arrival in the West End is welcome because there is a lack of stomach-splitting comedies on offer, and Young Frankenstein is not only stomach splitting – it’s laugh out very loud funny!

    Scientist Frederick Frankenstein (Hadley Fraser), who insists his last name is pronounced Frankensteen in order to disassociate himself from his grandfather – the mad scientist Dr Victor von Frankenstein, and which becomes a running joke throughout the show, learns that he has inherited a castle in the town of Transylvania Heights from his grandfather. He decides to check it out and boards the Queen Mary Shelley ship (Shelley is the original author of the book of Frankenstein), says goodbye to his fiancé Elizabeth (Dianne Pilkington) who sings the camp song ‘Please Don’t Touch Me’ in reference to her devotion to Frederick. Once Frederick arrives in the town, he is greeted by Igor (Ross Noble), a man with a hump on his back which keeps on changing sides. Frederick also hires an assistant to help him at the castle, and this assistant is the blond, beautiful, buxomy and German Inga (a wonderful Summer Strallen – who practically steals the show with her looks, and dumbwitnedness). They ride up to the castle on a wagon to the tune of ‘Roll in the Hay (because they are literally on hay and during the bumpy ride Inga practically exposes almost every part of her body – it’s too funny to be seen! Once in the castle (the production designer cleverly takes up deeper and deeper into the castle through the use of darkness and doors that continually reveals amazing new sets). There we meet the fabulous housekeeper Frau Blücher (Lesley Joseph) who has an absolute scene-stealing number with the song ‘He was my Boyfriend’ in reference to Victor Frankenstein. While in the castle, Frederick and Inga find a secret entrance to the laboratory, which inspires Frederick to create a monster in memory of his grandfather. Well, Igor gets a corpse for the experiment, but it’s not exactly what Frederick had in mind, nonetheless, a monster is born, but knocking on the door are the town’s villagers, led by the one-armed and one-legged Inspector Kemp (Patrick Clancy) (it literally cost him an arm and a leg! Tha dump!). He and the townspeople know that something is up in the castle, that many years ago bad things happened there, and they want to find out exactly what is going on in there. And the rest, as they say, is history.

    Young Frankenstein continues with the laughs, and laughs, and laughs, culminating in the rib breaking song ‘Puttin on the Ritz’ sung by The Monster, Frederick, Inga, Igor and company. This show has got to be the funniest show I’ve seen in the West End in a long time (funnier, I think, than ‘The Book of Mormon’). And all the cast are excellent, but Strallen and Joseph are lucky enough to be given show-stopping songs to sing, and Noble as Igor is just too good to be true, and let’s not leave out Shuler Hensley who plays, to great effect, The Monster. This show is just about perfect for a comedy, and Director and choreographer Susan Stroman has created a masterpiece, while kudos goes to set designer Beowulf Boritt. It’s a shame that this show is at the small Garrick Theatre, it needs a bigger theatre just so that more people are able to see it and enjoy it, but nonetheless it’s one you definitely don’t want to miss!

     

    Young Frankenstein plays at the Garrick Theatre, book tickets now