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Tag: St James Theatre

All the latest breaking news on the theatre St James Theatre. Browse THEGAYUK’s complete collection of news, articles and commentary on St James Theatre.

  • THEATRE REVIEW | This Joint Is Jumpin’

    THEATRE REVIEW | This Joint Is Jumpin’

    ★★★★  | This Joint Is Jumpin’

    This Joint Is Jumping' review
    CREDIT: Darren Bell

    London seems to have gone a bit tap dancing mad. What with “42nd Street” and “An American in Paris’ it seems that you can barely enter a theatre before someone starts toe tapping. That’s no bad thing either.

    The studio theatre at The Other Palace at Victoria (The St James’ Theatre with an oddly chosen new name) is a perfect cabaret venue. It’s intimate, stylish and only lacks an evocative haze of cigarette smoke to make it feel sufficiently retro. This lively show is a tribute to Fats Waller and the joint definitely jumped more than a little with glasses and bottles rattling on the tables and feet spontaneously tapping in the audience. Tap dancing, a live band and lively banter make this a full on joyous show to see.

    It’s not so much a musical but more a jazz and tap dancing gig. There are thin links that are entertaining, funny and occasionally moving but there’s no discernible plot to link it. As well as a tribute to Waller there’s a nod to black history which adds emotional wallop. The main draw here though is the performers. Broadway star Lilias White is a mesmerising powerhouse of a pocket rocket, belting out tunes with panache and making the hairs rise on whichever part you have that rise. The tap is frenetic and loud, the songs are raucous/melodic/blasting and the men are a sight to behold. Joseph Wiggan is notable as a tap supremo with jaw dropping moves and singers Michael Mwenso and Vuyo Sotashe rock the roof off. There’s a cheeky pianist, an MC with attitude and a great backing band. It’s a tiny stage but somehow they managed to fit 11 performers on there.

    Pour yourself a gin, sit back and let the music take you over. This might be retro jazz but there’s nothing dated or tired about this show.

     

    This Joint Is Jumpin’ is playing at The Other Palace, until 15th April

  • THEATRE REVIEW | The Last Five Years

    ★★★ | The Last Five Years, St James Theatre

    CREDIT: Scott Rylander

    The St James Theatre near Victoria has had a poor recent track record with widely panned shows such as “Miss Atomic Bomb” and the deeply unfunny comedies “Pig Farm” and “Three Lions” denting their reputation.

    It’s soon to be re-launched as “The Other Palace” (what were they thinking of with that name?). Things may be looking up with the addition of the duo that brought smash hit “In the Heights” to London (artistic director Paul Taylor-Mills and choreographer Drew McOnie) for their first production. Now acquired by Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Really Useful Company, the intention is that this will be a home for established productions as well new musicals.

    Before the name change, we have the 2001 two-hander “The Last Five Years”. It concerns a New York couple and looks at their failing relationship. Failing actress Cathy tells the story backwards from the point where they split up whilst rising star novelist Jamie tells the story from the time they first meet. There’s a midpoint where their stories match up and they join each other on stage. Told in solo songs, it’s a quirky musical that hasn’t dated much in its style since it was written in 2001 and the form almost works. There is something odd, though, about numbers in which the couple sing to each other but are alone on stage with the other half of the relationship occasionally loping through.

    Star of Les Miserables, Samantha Barks is a gutsy Cathy and can certainly belt out a tune as well as convey emotion. Good-looking “Broadchurch” beau Jonathan Bailey is almost her vocal equal. There are some moving songs, comedic moments and the odd deft touch of lyricism mixed with some heavy-handed metaphors. The main problem lies in connecting with the couple. They appear. They meet. They split up (and do the same in reverse, if you’re watching Cathy’s numbers). We don’t learn an awful lot more. Cathy is a struggling actress who is late a lot. Jamie writes a book and finds success, ultimately neglecting Cathy. It doesn’t feel enough and there’s a limited amount of depth to the story and characterisation that makes the numbers hard to connect with fully. The set is clumsy, pushed and pulled by stagehands with creaky moving parts jerkily appearing and wobbling a la “Crossroads” motel.

    In spite of the flaws: there can’t be many of us who don’t identify with the elation of a fledging relationship or the hideous pain of parting when it all goes wrong. There are some great songs, wry humour and touching moments. There’s a lot to like here (especially the two stars) and hopefully, this is a sign of better things to come (except for the new theatre name).

     

    The Last Five Years plays at St James Theatre until the 3rd December

    Follow Chris Bridges on Twitter

  • THEATRE REVIEW | The Stripper, St. James Theatre Studio

    THEATRE REVIEW | The Stripper, St. James Theatre Studio

    ★★ | The Stripper, St. James Theatre

    CREDIT: Origin8 Photography
    CREDIT: Origin8 Photography

     

    Ever heard of the biographical fallacy? No, it’s not a handy, dictaphone dildo, but a warning to never, ever judge an author’s work by his life. See, back in the 19th Century, critics actually believed in pure, spun-from-thin-air fantasy, that plays and novels came from sheer imagination, not hard, lived experience.

    Oh really? Tell that to gay, smack addict and novelistic genius William Burroughs, whose entire output mirrored his self-chosen squalor. And he’s merely the tip of a non-stop, thinly-fictionalised iceberg – every second, every minute, we’re swamped by tsunamis of blogs, memoirs and blatant self-mythologizing.

    So unsurprisingly, critical theory’s undergone a complete reversal, and currently, all creative writing is viewed as ultimately flowing from biographical facts. Oh dear. That’s very bad news for Rocky Horror creator Richard O’ Brien’s latest show The Stripper, which once again showcases his low-brow, pop-culture fixations. It’s a heavy-handed, sleazy, musical theatre adaptation of a disposable, pulp-fiction, private-eye novel by hack Carter Brown, and as dire as it sounds.

    Me, I pity the show’s outstanding actors. Despite being crippled by O’Brien’s clueless, misogynistic lyrics, an uninspired score and lazily generic stage design and costuming, they often touch real brilliance. In particular, Gloria Onitiri’s lead stripper Dolores has the raw, diva heat of a young Grace Jones, while Sebastian Torkia’s private eye Wheeler is magnificently moody. More quirkily, Hannah Grover, Michael Steedon and Marc Pickering all triple-up to flesh out The Stripper’s seedy, eccentric cast. Sadly, they inhabit a world of laughably clunky exposition, with composer Richard Hartley’s score merely a serviceable, degraded blizzard of inept doo-wop and leaden jazz.

    Immediately, it’s obvious that nothing but instant closure can rescue this glacially-paced, Z-grade murder mystery.

    Yes, every possible cliché is alive and unfeasibly surviving here. There are one-note tough guys, vapid femme fatales and even – shades of Rocky Horror’s Riff-raff – a two-timing hunchback.

    Speaking charitably, it’s more Roger Rabbit than Jason Bourne. My god – didn’t it even occur to O’Brien that Carter Brown was parodying hard-boiled prose and attitudes? How could it? Peel away all the frothy, feel-good kitsch from Rocky Horror onwards and what’s left are O’Brien’s deeply unpleasant, highly reactionary, sexual politics.

    Frankly, nothing else explains such shockingly offensive lyrics as ‘I wanna fondle your tits/Baby you give me a hard-on’. There’s a simply appalling sub-text here – f*ck whoever possible and totally abuse their feelings – a textbook, sexual predator sense of intimate entitlement and presumed consent. Sure, as a songwriter, O’Brien is hardly Noel Coward or Cole Porter, but surely he’s capable of finer artistry than this abysmal, teenage smut? Honestly, do audiences really need such insensitivity casually inflicted on them in 2016?

    And even more disturbingly, O’Brien’s lyrics don’t even attempt irony – the object of their lust is meant to feel privileged! Gee, whatever happened to any notions or awareness of sexual dignity, humanity or compassion here? Heartless but superficially attractive, The Stripper is a coldly cynical exercise in period sleaze, but ultimately, one best left unattended in a forgotten, theatrical morgue.

    The Stripper run at the St. James Theatre Studio until 13th August

    Reviewed by Trixabelle del Mar

  • THEATRE REVIEW | My Mother Said I Never Should

    ★★★★ | My Mother Said I Never Should

    CREDIT: Savannah Photographic

    My Mother Said I Never Should is an award winning debut play written when the author was just 25. It was chosen as one of the most significant plays of the twentieth century by the National Theatre and is, apparently, one of the most performed plays by a female artist. Yet, strangely it hasn’t been seen on a major London stage since the 1980s. Maybe plays about the relationships between women still don’t have commercial appeal? It’s a shame that it’s not been revived before but director Paul Robinson and producer Tara Finney have more than rectified that and have resurrected a thing of beauty and power.

    The stage is almost bare with stark white backgrounds and hints of furniture. Piles of television sets suggest eras and portions of scenery, helping to frame the action in the non-linear structure. The four women start the play as sinister schoolgirls (which could be excruciating to watch but is actually cleverly done), chanting rhymes and plotting to kill mummy. The play then evolves into a series of scenes from the lives of four generations of women in Manchester helped by subtle lighting and sound changes.

     

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    It’s a standard potboiler plot that could be found in a fat Catherine Cookson novel or a television soap opera: difficult marriages, terminal illness and illegitimate children. The script is cleverly written, though, and although the storyline veers towards mawkish sentimentality at times it always steers back and feels lifelike and moving rather than trite.

    Maureen Lipman is magnificent as Doris, a fearsome mother, grandmother and great grandmother. There’s depth to her character as she progresses through stern 1940s mother in the Blitz through to a more benign and charitable but still waspish old lady sunbathing with her pop socks off in the garden. She delivers her lines with skill and inhabits the role beautifully. Caroline Faber is convincing as her at times put upon daughter. Katie Brayben (who played Carole King to critical acclaim in the musical Beautiful) portrays Jackie with skilful restraint and Serena Manteghi is suitably boorish yet ultimately wise as Rosie.

    The play will resonant with a wide variety of people. Provided you had a mother/grandmother/aunt/sister or daughter then it’ll be hard not to reflect on your own experiences whilst you watch this. The yearning to be loved and approved of is innate and powerful. Don’t expect a tragic, visceral weepy though. There are so many comedic moments and killer lines that the blow of the deeper hurts being presented is softened suitably.

    This is a strong production with a skilled cast and high production values and is a welcome return to form for The St James Theatre. Highly recommended entertainment with underlying resonance.

    My Mother Said I Never Should plays at the St James Theatre, Victoria until 21st May 2016, 0844 264 2140

     

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Miss Atomic Bomb

    ★★ | Miss Atomic Bomb

    It’s a bomb that goes off during the production of ‘Miss Atomic Bomb.’ It’s not an actual bomb but a stink and sink bomb.

    (more…)

  • THEATRE REVIEW | McQueen

    ★★★ | McQueen

    Fashion Designer Alexander McQueen committed suicide in February, 2010 at the age of 39. But his work and memory lives on, including in a new play simply called McQueen.

    Stephen Wight plays (and looks just like) McQueen, who was one of the most celebrated UK fashion designers of our time. McQueen, though very successful, had a troubled life; drugs, depression, the suicide of his friend and muse Isabella Blow, who practically helped McQueen become the success that he was, and the death of his mother are some of the factors that probably led him to take his own life in his Central London flat on Feb. 11, 2010.

    McQueen is written not as a play about his life but more about the journey McQueen took to build his career. The journey is brought on by fictional character Dahlia (Dianna Agron) – the idea taken from McQueen’s 2008 collection ‘The Girl Who Lived in the Tree.’ She’s basically a stalker who breaks into McQueen’s flat. He’s startled at first, but her childlike personality and beautiful looks and curvy body appeal to McQueen in a visual sense.

    So McQueen and Dahlia travel through a few important milestones in McQueen’s life; the tailor shop where McQueen got his start and where, on the spot, he makes a dress for Dahlia. They go to his mother’s home, where she is upstairs in bed, sick. And McQueen gets to be reunited with the ghost that is Blow (a smashing Tracy-Ann Oberman), the woman who bought up all of McQueen’s first collection but who still wants to know why he didn’t take her with him to the top, and why did he leave her behind when it was she who made him what he was. In between these pit stops we are visually treated to very slow moving dancers who change the set and morph with, through and in between each other. Visually it’s stunning, you don’t realise the set is changing because the movements are so mesmerising. But this doesn’t make up for the fact that McQueen the play is a bit too thin and doesn’t provide the theatregoer with a true celebration and story of McQueen’s life.

    Wight is amazing as McQueen. In fact, he looks exactly like McQueen did in his later years. Wight captures all of his mannerisms and idiosyncrasies, including the scene where he instantaneously creates a dress for Dahlia. It’s an excellent performance. Agron as Dahlia is given lots of soliloquy dialogue to recite – is she talking to McQueen, the audience, or to herself? And yes, she does recite, likes she’s reading from a teleprompter. Hers is not a great performance as she’s with the amazing Wright during the whole show. But Oberman practically steals the show from Wright in her all-too-brief turn as Bow. It’s a showstopping performance, with Oberman dressed in a sexy negligee. Playwright James Phillips and Director John Caird have produced a play that is weak in biography but beautiful in its presentation, but we’re still left wanting to know more about McQueen and his life and his fashions. We will have to do with the V&A Museum’s Savage Beauty exhibition as well as the highly-acclaimed book about McQueen; Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin, by Andrew Wilson, as well as Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, by Dana Thomas.

    McQueen is playing at the St. James Theatre until June 27th:

    http://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/theatre/mcqueen

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Accolade, St James Theatre

    ★★★★★ | Accolade, St James Theatre

    London, 1950: Private and public worlds collide when on New Year’s Day author Will Trenting’s knighthood attracts the glare of the British press. Happily married novelist, Will, has been leading a double life. Drawn to the seedier side of life, he’s been mixing with London’s ‘low-life’ and indulging in debauched sex parties and drunken debauchery. Will is forced to battle against the exposure of his secret life, its effect on his family and friends and the double standards of a society bent on destroying him.

    Rising star Director Blanche McIntyre (Best Director 2013, UK Theatre Awards) directs Emlyn Williams’ tale of sex, scandal and blackmail. As relevant now as when it first shocked audiences in 1950, this gripping thriller was awarded Time Out’s Best Off West End Production and three Off West End awards including Best Production when it was presented at the Finborough Theatre in 2011.

    Playwright Emlyn Williams was openly bisexual, balancing his marriage and family life with a series of flings. Coming out as bisexual ahead of most of his contemporaries, Williams’ play echoes his own private life. Surprisingly, the play passed the strict censorship rules of the early 1950s and still retains a freshness and salacious yet sympathetically drawn power to shock in 2014. This is a superior play and a worthy revival of a piece that was sadly neglected and mostly forgotten for many years. Shades of Coward and Rattigan exist but this play has a daring boldness that wasn’t always evident in works of the era.

    The staging and cast are pitch perfect with no weak links in the powerful nine-person line-up. The versatile set invokes the feel of the early 1950s and manages to echo the play as the walls slowly close in along with the world Trenting inhabits.

    I’d heartily recommend catching this rare gem at the St James Theatre.

    Accolade runs until the 13th of December 2014

    Buy tickets here: http://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/theatre/accolade/

    by Chris Bridges

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope, St James Theatre, London

    ★★★ | Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope, St James Theatre, London
    “I became one of the stately homos of England.”

    From a conventional middle-class Surrey upbringing to global notoriety via his autobiography “The Naked Civil Servant”, Quentin Crisp was an extraordinary raconteur and wit. This new production, making its London premiere after an Edinburgh season, shows Quentin both in his beloved but squalid Chelsea flat as the 1970s dawn, and in his final years in his adopted New York, with the new millennium beckoning.

    The show draws on Quentin’s own writing and performances in a new script by Mark Farrelly, who also performs (West End credits include Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf with Matthew Kelly). He is directed by the renowned Linda Marlowe, who has won awards for her own solo work such as Berkoff’s Women.
    Quentin Crisp was an extraordinary character. Sharp-tongued, controversial and seemingly fearless. Born in an age when gay sex was illegal and liable to land you in prison, he embraced what he was: a flamboyant and effeminate homosexual. Facing ridicule, beatings and scorn as well as the ardour of men in the back alleys of Soho, he became a notorious character. With the publication of his autobiography and subsequent television film of this, starring John Hurt, he took infamy and his waspish wit to a much wider audience. His one-liners were legendary as were his regular television chat show appearances.

    Alienating the gay rights movement of the 1970s and causing furore with flippant comments about anything from AIDS being a passing fad, homosexuality being a terrible disease and his views on Princess Diana, perhaps more shockingly, the seemingly very English based institution, moved to New York and made his home there in his later years.

    Farrelly’s play has strengths and weaknesses. He manages to capture some of the wit, acidity and pathos of Crisp but at times this is slightly patchy. The script is stronger in the first half when Crisp is shown alone in his London flat, addressing the audience as he postures and quips with the thin veneer showing some vulnerability beneath. Although physically much sturdier than Crisp, he does manage, mostly, to convey an essence of Crisp’s character and demeanour. The second half, where Farrelly depicts Crisp performing in New York just before his death, felt much weaker with the relentless round of bon mots becoming a bit tired and the audience participation element feeling a bit unnecessary to the show. I did, however, laugh quite a lot and it was good to be reminded of some of Crisp’s better one-liners in this well-researched show.

    Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope is on at St James Theatre until the 7th of September 2014

    Buy tickets here: http://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/events/quentin-crisp-naked-hope/

    The show will also be touring the U.K. from October with shows at Greenwich, Cardiff, Dundee and Hemel Hempstead.

  • THEATRE REVIEW: A Spoon Of Sherman, St. James Theatre

    ★★★★ | A Spoon Of Sherman, St. James Theatre

    Billed as ‘The Songbook of Your Childhood’, this celebration of one of the world’s best-loved songwriting duos is so very much more than that; it is the songbook – nay, the soundtrack – to my life.

    The first Act opens with an Al Sherman medley. A prolific songwriter in the 1930s and 40s, Al Sherman wrote for Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Billie Holiday, and many others. It’s very evident from hearing these numbers that such talent runs in the genes. His sons, Robert and Richard, would go on to continue this fine art for many years as The Sherman Brothers, and their songbook provides the main focus of the evening.

    The musicals the brothers are best known for fly in thick and fast – Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Jungle Book, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Parent Trap, Charlotte’s Web, Winnie the Pooh, The Slipper and the Rose, and so many more. Delightfully, A Spoonful of Sherman also includes some of their lesser-known, but no less delightful, back catalogue.

    The four singers – Greg Castiglioni, Stuart Matthew Price, Charlotte Wakefield and Emma Williams – are supremely talented and versatile, swinging with apparent ease between ballads and the more lively numbers; between comical and serious without a flinch. This is never more evident than the perfectly executed leap from The Jungle Book’s “I Wanna Be Like You” to “The Age of Not Believing”, from Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

    Now, I may be a little bit biased here (I hereby confess to a lifelong obsession with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), but Emma Williams stands out for me. Partly because every time I see her, I remember the many trips I took to the Palladium while she played Truly Scrumptious in Chitty, but also because of her exceptionally sweet and clear voice. Her performance of “Mother Earth and Father Time” from Charlotte’s Web is beautiful and a definite highlight of the evening.

    A Spoonful of Sherman is hosted by the affable Robert J Sherman, the son of Robert B Sherman. An accomplished songwriter in his own right, we are treated to a few numbers from his musical, Bumblescratch, which workshopped in London last year. It is clear he has inherited his father’s, and grandfather’s, innate talent.

    And then, it’s here. As sad as it is to leave the rest of the evening behind, I hear a few distinctive notes which signal the start of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang medley and the world melts away. It is everything I want it to be, and there can be no higher praise than that from such a devoted fan.

    All in all, A Spoonful of Sherman provides an entertaining insight into 90 years of songwriting history. In every note, this exquisite tapestry of song is an entirely fitting tribute, not only to the Shermans’ talent, but to the very art of songwriting.

    A Spoonful of Sherman plays at 19:45 on Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 April at the St James Theatre. Tickets are £18-£25 from https://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/events/a-spoonful-of-sherman-2

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Amateur Girls St. James Theatre and UK Tour

    ★★★★★ | Amateur Girls St. James Theatre and UK Tour

    Julie is a 30 something auxiliary nurse living in a high rise flat in Nottingham with her cat, Lulu.

    She’s always up for a laugh with nights down at the local clubs with a sneaky bottle of vodka in her handbag, a penchant for Take That and a swig of wine at home in the evenings. She spends her days working with elderly people, making sure their physical needs are met and her spare time, making porn to meet another kind of physical need altogether.

    Amanda Whittington’s powerful yet hilarious play takes the form of an Alan Bennett style monologue that is 70 minutes long. Lucy Speed (best known as Natalie Evans in Eastenders) gives a magnificent performance and somehow the play carries the audience off to another world by the power of superb acting and clever use of sound. Julie’s accidental transition from ‘good-time girl’ to amateur porn star is credible and thought provoking as the piece examines the tension between choice and coercion in relation to women and sexuality. Watching Julie’s naïve progress and hearing her history unfold is a heart breaking experience yet Whittington manages to also make the story extremely watchable with masses of humour.

    Whittington researched her subject, basing the play on the experiences of genuine sex workers and is drawn chiefly from the true story of one auxiliary nurse who worked in the ‘amateur’ porn industry whilst holding down a job in a hospital. The play never feels preachy or predictable and although Julie’s experiences aren’t always good they’re also not always terrible and are at times, really good fun for her. There’s a clever line that wavers constantly over whether she’s a victim, a woman using her sexuality to empower herself financially or a hapless naïve. I certainly left the theatre thinking about the theme.

    I was especially impressed with Speed’s Nottingham accent (I’m from those parts and as somewhat of an expert, can say that she did it really very well) and her performance is absolutely second to none. I laughed, winced, gasped and felt near to tears for Julie, thanks to the tremendous skills of Speed, a woman with fantastic talent.

    Fifth Word are definitely a theatre company to watch out for wit their previous Edinburgh Fringe smash hit success ‘Bones’, which was again an exceptional piece of theatre. I can’t recommend this play enough.

    Catch the play at the St James Theatre, London until 21st February:
    http://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/events/amateur-girl

    U.K. tour dates until 15th March 2014:
    http://fifthword.co.uk/projects/spring-2014-tour-amateur-girl-by-amanda-whittington

  • THEATRE REVIEW | Putting It Together, St. James Theatre

    ★★★★★ | Putting It Together, St. James Theatre

    The original New York production of “Putting It Together”, a musical revue created by Julia McKenzie and Stephen Sondheim, starred none other than Julie Andrews. This first London staging of the show is much like Ms Andrews’ famous character Mary Poppins: practically, perfect in every way.

    If you already love Sondheim then this is a rare treat, with a chance to see a whole host of his songs performed to a stunningly high standard. If you don’t know Sondheim’s work then this is a brilliant way to get to know his style and revel in his wit and panache.

    From lovelorn, embittered and angry, through to wistful, longing and hopeful, the song selection covers a huge range of emotions and facets of the terrifying and perplexing thing that is human relations. The cast selection is staggeringly good too. Listening to David Bedella’s voice is like sipping smooth Bourbon, whilst Janie Dee manages to pack pathos, rage and comedy into every word (and what a lot of words some of the numbers contain). Damian Humbley, Daniel Crossley and Caroline Sheen make up the rest of the strong five-person cast and all do more than justice to Sondheim’s numbers with amazing vocal talents, backed by a skilled sextet of musicians.

    The show cleverly utilises a diverse range of songs as the audience watch the progress of a couple as they undergo a tempestuous night at a cocktail party. The audience last night certainly loved the show and there was a standing ovation with rapturous applause.

    I can’t recommend this enough. It’s on for a strictly limited 3 week run until the 1st of February

    Buy tickets here: http://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/events/putting-it-together/