Robert seems to have it all but in reality, he doesn’t. His fate is revealed in the new hard-hitting play GH Boy.
Now playing at the Charing Cross Theatre until December 20th Robert (Jimmy Essex) has the perfect boyfriend in Sergio (Marc Bosch). Sergio is young, cute, fun and just adores Robert – who in Sergio’s eyes can’t do no wrong. Robert also has an understanding mom (now played by Nicola Sloane after Buffy Davis injured herself), a very good friend in Jasminder (Anryana Ramkhalawon) and an understanding therapist (Devesh Kishore). But Robert hides a secret – he’s way over his head in East London’s party scene (party = drugs).
Meanwhile, there are whispers of a gay serial killer who entices gay men with promises of drugs, drugs, and more drugs. Robert desperately wants to leave the scene behind him and to enjoy his engagement with the adorable Sergio – but Robert can’t seem to escape the clutch on drugs – and this might just lead to a rendevous with the serial killer who seems about to snare Robert into his dangerous web.
GH Boy tackles the misconceptions around gay culture and promiscuity and questions why gay men like Robert are drawn to this scene to the point of self-destruction in this show by debut playwright Paul Harvard.
Originally supposed to run at The Vaults earlier this year but cancelled due to COVID 19 – catch it now while you can before possible tier 3 restrictions come into effect.
Take a tour through Barbra Streisand’s underground shopping centre – in her home – in the new play Buyer & Cellar.
Is the shopping centre real? That’s for you to decide, but in this brilliant production, you’ll get a bit of insight into the woman who is the most talented, respected and perhaps loneliest biggest celebrity in the world.
Now playing at the Above the Stag Theatre (until November 8th) in a show that never had it’s premiere as it was scheduled to open in mid-March, Buyer & Cellar is nowhere and it’s your chance to go see it in a socially distanced theatre which is perhaps one of the cleanest around!
And Aaron Sidwell is brilliant as Alex More, an out of work actor who gets hired for a mysterious job, it’s a job that no one knew ever existed – to run the shops beneath Barbra Streisand’s Malibu home, shops that are full of her memorabilia. But when Alex encounters La Streisand when she enters the basement, he treats her like any other customer in shops where there will be only one customer – HER. And when she wants to buy a doll, Sidwell cleverly and quickly jumps inter her character, and he effortlessly does her throughout the show. Eventually, Alex feels like he and Streisand are forming a bond each time she comes to the shops, and he yearns to know whether she sees him as a friend or just another employee. As the lines get blurred Alex maintains his composure until he’s invited upstairs to see the house, and he’s hoping this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
In this 100 minutes plus show, Sidwell who holds your attention and masters the dialogue, and draws us into his world – and Barbra’s basement shopping mall. It’s a one-man show – with a larger than life celebrity at its centre, but Sidwell getting the applause.
Sleepless the first major stage productions to open up in London in 6 months (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre opened in Mid-August with Jesus Christ Superstar). Originally scheduled to open on April 1st, it was sidelined, like all other productions, until further notice. But now it is here, and it’s a fun and lively show that will keep you entertained and emotional, not just because of the romantic plot but also because it’s a real live show that you’ll be watching, and not a taped show on your laptop!
Playing at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre, in, yes Wembley (not quite the West End), Sleepless is based on the 1993 hit film Sleepless in Seattle (which starred Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks). And while stars Jay McGuiness and Kimberly Walsh are no Hanks and Ryan, they make a fantastic pair as a man and woman who are destined to be together.
If you don’t know the plot, McGuiness is single father Sam. His wife passed away a year ago and he is left with young son Jonah. Jonah calls into a radio station to announce that his father is available to meet someone new, very much to Sam’s dismay. Enter Walsh’s Annie, a journalist about to be married to the dull but romantic Walter (Daniel Casey). When Annie hears about Jonah’s plea, she somehow feels that for her it’s a true calling, and she decides on a rendevous time and place in the hopes that Sam will be there and then. Of course, Sleepless ends on a happy note, and without giving too much away it’s happily ever after, with toe-tapping songs and a very good supporting cast to get us to the happy ending. While it’s not quite award-winning stuff, it gets my award for bringing a smile to people’s faces, and for ambitiously opening up.
The seating capacity at this very large and very new theatre has been reduced from 1,300 to 400. Masks are required to wear while inside the auditorium (including the bar area), temperature checks and track and trace are there as you walk into the compound, and the cast and crew are subject to daily testing. But it’s a magnificent theatre with a bar outside and inside and plenty of space to move around.
But here’s to producers Michael Rose and Damien Sanders for getting this show, a brand new one never been done before, up and running. Kudos to Michael Burdette for the book, Robert Scott and Brendan Cull (new British writers) for the music and lyrics, and the 12 piece orchestra. And kudos to the people you see on stage – they all make it look so seamless and easy, making us forget, temporarily, the events of the past 6 months.
This is what theatre is all about.
SLEEPLESS, plays at Wembley Park until 27th September 2020. Book tickets here.
Everyone’s favourite big, gay bus is hitting the road again, as Felicia, Tick and Bernadette unplug their curling tongs and go bush, travelling across the Australian outback and making their way to perform a show in Alice Springs. Between the breaking down, bickering and bigotry, the trio learns about life, love and friendship whilst strutting their stuff in their high heels.
As Felicia says at one point in the film that the show is based on, “there’s nothing like new frock to brighten your day, girls.” The show has been re-imagined and like the bus itself, it is given a fresh coat of paint. But not every frock is made of satin and this production, unbelievably, manages to suck most of the fun out of what is, in reality, a superb show.
Joe McFadden is woefully miscast as Tick, hardly making any eye contact with the audience and flipping between being virtually inanimate to over-exaggerating every gesture, whilst Miles Western portrays transsexual Bernadette more as a gay man than a trans woman; with only Jordan Cunningham bringing much to the main trio as Adam and his drag alter ego Felicia.
The corrugated iron-based background set is bland, gone are the recreations of the Oscar-winning costumes (to remove the flip-flop dress is a crime) and the titular bus doesn’t fare too well either. There is an abundance of unnecessary creative decisions – the “comedic” shooting of a kangaroo, a flashing nun and the addition of a set of dancing hicks whilst Adam belts out La Traviata from the top of the bus – which simply don’t sit well within the show. The delivery of the script fell flat. There is an increase in the sexualisation in the show, containing more groin thrusting that is really needed and seemingly replacing the camp with a vague sleaziness.
The choreography was safe rather than outrageous, and the staging made the performance space seem almost empty when the ensemble cast were performing. Those who are seeing the show for the first time may well find much to enjoy, but disappointingly, this is an incredibly uninspiring production.
On the plus side, the Divas’ were able to belt out the tunes, the soundtrack comprising of a selection of disco classics is stomping and the musical numbers are undertaken with energy and enthusiasm by the ensemble. But sadly, the re-imagined show looked cheap, the costumes were disappointing and tacky, the performances from the main cast were broadly poor and the over the top camp felt sadly lacking.
It must be difficult to drain the life out of such a buoyant and uplifting show, but somehow, this production manages to do just that.
Intrigue. Attraction. Mystery. Lust. Sex. Murder. These are the themes surrounding two plays rolled into one and called ‘Spy Plays’ now at the Above the Stag Theatre.
David Thame’s ‘Kompromat‘ and ‘London/Budapest‘ are shown together for the first time, and both based on true life events where the same actors play different characters in both, 60 years apart.
‘Kompromat’ which in Russian culture is short for “compromising material”, and which has been previously performed at the Vaults, tells the chilling story of Gareth Williams, the presumedly gay man who worked for a government agency and who was found dead inside a sportsbag in the bathtub in his Pimlico flat in 2010. The show takes the story further by surmising that he picked up a man at a gay bar on that night and took him back to his flat. Guy Warren-Thomas plays Gareth, shy yet brilliant, while Max Rinehart plays Zac, the young mysterious Hungarian who seduces Gareth and perhaps had something to do with his death. In ‘London/Budapest’ it’s 1955 and Author Adam de Hegedus (Warren-Thomas), has just met a young man (Rinehart again, at his most seductive) at the Jermyn Street Baths, and takes him back to his Pimlico flat. But who is this young man? Is he who he says he is?
And did de Hegedus actually commit suicide or was he murdered?
So what links these two men? A Pimlico flat, and that both dead had connections to the spy world. And Director Peter Darney beautifully, with the help of the production team, brings it all to life on one of the stages at Above the Stag. In ‘London/Budapest‘ we are whisked to a appropriate era set with a comfy lounge chair while in ‘Kompromat‘ it’s a modern bachelor flat where death will rear its ugly head. And the acting couldn’t be better. While Rinehart has the most dialogue and delivers it with passion, Warren-Thomas Is just perfect in his duel roles and is also absolutely breathtaking when he enters the stage in ‘Kompromat’ in an outfit that’s unexpected yet very, very sexy.
★★★★ | The Prince of Egypt, Dominion Theatre, London
Dreamwork’s animated 1998 film ’The Prince of Egypt‘ comes to life at the Dominion Theatre.
With music and lyrics by veteran composer Stephen Schwarz, and directed by his son Scott Schwartz, ‘The Prince of Egypt’ faithfully follows the film in the telling of two men – Moses (Luke Brady) and Ramses (Liam Tamne) – who were raised as brothers but, in one of the dark secrets of the family, are not actually brothers.
Moses was born a Hebrew, and after an accident where Moses pushes an Egyptian guard off a temple being built by the Hebrew slaves, he runs off and encounters what turns out to be his real sister and the real members of his family – all Hebrews. While his adopted father dies, Ramses takes over as the Pharaoh – King – while at the same time still condemning all Hebrews to a life of slavery, which will now include his brother. With the brothers divided, what will become of their relationship, and of the Hebrews who desperately seek their freedom?
The production values in this show are worth the price of a ticket. From the illuminated pharaohs and hieroglyphics, which are projected on to the sides of and on the stage, to the amazing costumes and sets, ’The Prince of Egypt’ was made for the huge stage that is the Dominion Theatre. And the dancers are all actually superb, morphing from statues to flowing water to wind to sand dunes to the burning bush where God tells Moses that he needs to return to Egypt and guide the Hebrews to freedom.
Yes, we also get to see Moses part the red sea, with videos of waves projected onto the sides of the stage to make it look like the Hebrews are actually walking between the red sea. Disney, just like their other productions in the West End, looks like they spared no expense in this production. Kudos go to Sean Cheesman, choreographer, who has guided the dancers to be practically another character in the show, to the production and set design and costumes (Jon Driscoll, Kevin Depinet and Ann Hould-Ward respectively), and the performances of both Brady and Tamne. Also, the singing voices of Christine Allado, Alexia Khadime and Mercedesz Csampai are just beautiful. While there were a couple of scenes that had us scratching our heads, overall it’s an amazing production and one not to miss.
When you walk into a theatre and you see that the set is a grand staircase leading into a living room with a large statue of David and various photos of men and drag queens on the wall you know you’re in for a drag of a time. This is exactly what ‘La Cage’ delivers.
Actor Simon Callow adapted the show for the stage, who was asked to write an English version of the original 1973 play (which inspired three french films, a hit musical, and a hit American film – The Birdcage). Directed by Jez Bond, ‘La Cage’ is written in its original time and location, and French speaker Callow astutely brings the flavour of the original farce to life.
Drag queen extraordinaire Albin (Paul Hunter) and Georges (an amazing Michael Matus) own and live above drag queen bar La Cage, along with their extremely camp butler Jacob (Syrus Lowe) who can sure wear high heels. Georges’ son Laurent (Arthur Hughes) arrives to inform him that he’s getting married to a girl whose parents are very religious and conservative, and that they’re coming to town to meet his ‘parents.’
Laurent’s natural mother is invited as well but leaves it to Albin to pretend he’s Laurent’s mother and it’s all one huge farce on the day and things get worse downstairs in the club as all hell breaks loose as Albin is not in residence. Dishes with naughty pictures and innuendos galore go into overdrive as the show goes way over the top with an ending identical to the other productions but in this production is all a bit too easily sewn up.
A lot happens in just over two hours and the cast easily keep up the comedy and energy. From the grand dame that is Albin to the almost not in control Georges they help to maintain a bit of the drama while the show spins its characters all over the place. And while you’ll admire their dedication and tenacity, you might find yourself laughing throughout but to a point where it’s not even funny.
When was Billie Trix – the fictional Diva of Divine Degradation – first unleashed in public? Why, 9/11/01 of course, the purrfect date of birth for a one-woman assault on all known taste! How could I possibly forget? Furiously pumped by the blistering, raw nasal ecstasy of prime, Cordon Bleu coke, I had no idea that evening’s Closer to Heaven press night – Billie’s media premiere – would soon expose me to the sizzling incandescence of the then-unknown and uncrowned Queen of Cunt Rock!
Was I up for it? Oh Christ, yes – I’d just spent an outrageously erotic, Rocky Horror night with my then-partner, and utterly fucked from drugs, sexual excess and a huge plate of restorative pasta, I crashed comatose for hours. Bad move – I woke to 71 missed voice messages screeching World War Three was game on, was happening, the World Trade Centre and Pentagon both savaged by kamikaze terrorists.
An ultimate wake-up call? For sure – nothing grabs your attention faster than indiscriminate, random slaughter in globally-famous landmarks! Still, press nights wait for no-one – neither queen nor transdiva – so Billie Trix’s first, ferocious draft scorched our spectacularly heightened senses with a contact high worthy of Dietrich screwing Madonna!
Sure, public decorum cancelled the scheduled after-party, but not the impromptu shag-a-thon spontaneously erupting at the Shadow Lounge, all blatant public sex and delirium; Frankly, there’s nothing like terrorist death-threats to kick-start libidos and make Viagra instantly redundant!
So, can lightning strike twice? Never doubt it! Even in Closer To Heaven, Billie’s role screamed out for total exposure – the more warts, pudenda and used condoms the better – and, with Musik, authored by Jonathan Harvey and sound-tracked by the Pet Shop Boys, Billie finally has a solo showcase capable of killing her talent-free rivals on sight!
Musik, authored by Jonathan Harvey and sound-tracked by the Pet Shop Boys, Billie finally has a solo showcase capable of killing her talent-free rivals on sight!
Billie’s back-story? Simple – she’s an every day, utterly amoral, drug-fucked hedonist, like all unrepentant media whores; hello Michael Jackson and my darling, Catholic Pope, allegedly shockingly high on snorted Saints’ ashes! But while lazy – and unimaginative – critics cite Marianne Faithfull as Billie’s role model par excellence, she’s arguably far closer in spirit to Wendy O.Williams, deranged frontwoman of hardcore punk band the Plasmatics. And Wendy’s finest, must-read media moment? Nothing less than attempting suicide trying to hammer a kitchen knife through her sternum!
Okay, maybe Billie’s not quite that extreme, but as played by the uber-Botticellian Frances Barber reprising her iconic role, Billie instantly electrifies every susceptible cock in sight! And an appropriate air of depravity is set by the Velvet Underground’s ‘Sister Ray’, fiercely chugging away pre-show in the auditorium. Pin-sharp perfect mood music, it’s a 17(!)-minute epic of smacked-up, tranny junkies projectile puking all over their appalled johns, as they come en masse in showers of rancid spunk!
Arguably, ‘Sister Ray’ is Billie’s signature song as much as Dietrich’s ‘Falling in Love Again’, and sets our expectations sky-high. We’re not disappointed; Heart-stoppingly offensive, Billie takes no prisoners, dead, alive or in between, like a glorious, fetish-culture Joan Rivers on Crystal Meth! And gay author Jonathan Harvey pulls no punches, ramping the Amy Winehouse Bible of Pure Excess to scarcely believable, Trailer Trash on Steroids tastelessness!
Structured as a flashback memoir of Billie’s fantastically view-worthy highs – and lows – the only downside of Musik, ironically, is the Pet Shop Boys’ dreary, pompous and hollow synth-pop, and the six, stunningly banal songs – absolute masterpieces of vacuity – that punctuate the show. Cringingly, Warhol’s feted by this lyrical messterpiece; ‘Soup…won’t let you droop’, after which my mind – and pen – refused to transcribe the subsequent drivel.
Still – thank my Holy, Bleeding Jesus – there’s still Barber’s ferociously meaty, dramatic attack to relish. Briefly, Billie name-checks the famous – and infamous – she’s shared genitalia, and, more interestingly, repartee with, from Jackson Pollack, Trump to Prince Harry, and it’s here the one-liners come thick, fast and awesomely offensive.
A word of warning; dump any snowflake bigotry – and faux-sensitivity – right NOW; Jonathan Harvey’s wit is brutally eloquent. So, are you firmly strapped in? Then we’ll take a ride on the All About Eve ghost-train…“Trump’s penis?’ Billie hisses, ‘it’s shaped like a walnut whip!”, and that Lou Reed compared her clitoris to a perfect, triple bass clef’.
On a roll now, she screams she’s “such a perfectionist – I produce at least ONE note a week!’. But occasionally, even Billie needs Autotune; ‘Your voice would sound this rough if you’d sucked as many lying cocks as I have!’. Still, she’s a model of sobriety – “I haven’t touched smack since my first rehearsal this morning!’ but even so, Billie simply can’t stand Madonna; ‘That plagiarising Bitch! She copies everything!’ Now. that insult takes ferocious balls, with Madge literally playing London’s Palladium just streets away!
More hot, feisty and fearless than tranny hookers shagging football thugs, Francis Barber’s Billie Trix is simply a revelation in Musik. Think Killing Eve’s Villanelle with added singing chops and utterly insouciant, jaded attitude, and you have diva Bille Trix, the absolute, Reigning Queen of killer, kitsch cabaret! So why waste time streaming porn or Game of Thrones? The real Dragon Queen – Billie Trix – is gloriously spreading her wings right now in Soho!
‘Time & Tide’ is a tale of love in the most unexpected places.
Nemo (Josh Barrow) works at a diner but has bigger ambitions in life. He wants to move to the big city of London, to be in theatre, and to get out of his nothing town of Cromer. This is much to the dismay of his boss at the diner May (Wendy Nottingham), who encourages him to stay in their small town. But Nemo’s friend Daz (Elliot Liburd) is secretly in love with him, but of course, Daz is not going to blatantly come out and say it, though he says he just recently broker up with his girlfriend. Meanwhile, May has an admirer in Ken (Paul Easton), the bread delivery man who also is hesitant to come out and say how he really feels. But May has some other sort of secret intentions, and it’s not for Ken. So what is her secret? And will Daz finally tell Nemo how he really feels? It’s unrequited love, love that may or may not be reciprocal, in Time & Tide.
Good performances, and the lovely diner set, in the cosy small room of the Park Theatre, make this production, its premiere, one to watch. Liburd is a natural on stage, but it’s Nottingham who is memorable as the woman who has run the diner for decades, and who is considering selling up and moving away. Nottingham is just fantastic.
Jamie is 16 and is not like his friends at school. His best friend wants to be a doctor, but he wants to be a drag queen. Raised by his mum in a single-parent family on one of Sheffield’s tougher estates, Jamie finds himself, and his alter ego, Mimi Me, with the help of fading drag queen, Hugo, and with the support of his ever doting mother and her best friend. But Jamie’s difficult relationship with his dad dents Jamie’s confidence; and the school aren’t particularly enthused about the big question on everyone’s lips – namely, whether Jamie will go to the school prom, or whether Mimi Me will.
The West End smash is venturing out on a national tour, and starting its 20 venue run at its spiritual home of Sheffield Theatres. For a touring production, the presentation of the show is spot on, with a simple but versatile set and a slick and polished look and feel, as it heads out with a broadly fresh cast.
Leyton Williams (Bad Education) reprises his West End role as Jamie, and whilst his vocals were not the strongest, his portrayal of Jamie was deliciously delightful. Amy Ellen Richardson absolutely nails her two show-stopping numbers as Margaret, Jamie’s mother; and George Sampson (Britain’s Got Talent) is impressive as Dean, the school bully. But it was Shane Richie who proved to be the biggest surprise of the night, balancing a measured performance as Hugo with a flamboyant turn as Loco Chanelle, his drag alter ego.
The strength of the show lies not just in the performances, but in the excellent writing and the superb score. Beautifully blending comedy and emotion, the story is one which easily balances the comedy with genuine feeling. ‘He’s My Boy‘ is nothing short of a torch song, and the more tender moments between Jamie and his Mother nestle beautifully in the feel-good warmth of the sharp script. But there is also tremendous pop bubble-gum fun to be had with many of the musical numbers, and the choreography, characterisations and ensemble cast bring both the stage and the characters to life.
The show doesn’t re-tread the usual ground with someone struggling with their sexuality, nor about seeking acceptance from their peers. Jamie is out, proud and everyone in his life loves him, which provides a refreshing change to coming of age stories such as these. The struggle is with Jamie’s self-image and his self-belief; and of the impact of his absent and rejecting father; and is very much a story about what makes a family rather than focusing on the acceptance or otherwise of Jamie’s sexuality.
The new touring production for 2020 brings with it a vivacious burst of energy and the show remains as utterly joyful and triumphant as ever. I laughed, I cried and I cheered on multiple occasions over the show’s duration, and if you’ve not been able to catch the show in the West End, then the national tour is bringing Jamie to a theatre near you. Move aside, Blood Brothers, there’s a new standing ovation musical in town.
As Star Trek’s Borg Queen, Alice Krige was instantly, shockingly unearthly, an stunning visual heart-attack, as unlikely as an 8-foot drag queen twerking on crack! An arguable career highlight, the role propelled Krige into the media stratosphere, paving the way for an acclaimed, deeply nuanced run in Spooks.
Profundity Murdered By Pedestrian Pedants!
Effortlessly cutting the actorial mustard, her every, hugely conflicted moment a master-class in killer drama, Krige proved an absolute dramatic revelation on screen.
So – pardon our French – WTF happened to Krige’s live acting chops? In the beautifully refurbished Riverside Studios opening production, Persona, an adaptation of Ingmar Bergmans’ masterly and forensic dissection of identity, she’s an inaudible as a de-miked Madonna futilely gyrating on stage.
How come? Was she somehow under the assumption that film-craft projection – where the slightest whisper is captured by multiple, ultra-sensitive boom mics – would be adequate for a packed space with severely raked seats, with all those packed bodies relentlessly soak up the sound?
Poor, poor Alice – how badly mistaken can an actress be? And – to be fair – she’s hardly helped by those steep raked bench seats. Ever cursed the sea of bobbing heads blocking your sight-line at a badly-planned venue? Welcome to a Grade-A theatrical nightmare!
And – unbelievably – the production choices descend from poor to atrocious.
Bergman’s movie, briefly, is intensely focused on the deepening, psychic symbiosis between Sister Alma, a female nurse, and the inexplicably mute, traumatised actress –Elisabet – she’s caring for in a remote, isolated clinic.
Never easy viewing and exceptionally demanding cinema, Bergman’s script is dense, tortuous, gnomic and elliptical, hardly the stuff of unintentional comedy. So it doesn’t help when – as a result of an inexplicable creative choice – director Paul Schoolman doubles up as an utterly superfluous, onstage narrator to what’s best staged as an intense two-hander. What on earth does adding a dreary, flatly inexpressive voice-over detailing Bergman’s creative process and thoughts on filming Persona add to a show where the principles – Krige and Nobuhle Mngcwengi’s mute actress Elizabet -are crouching invisible and inaudible on a visually obstructed stage?
Which opens another, hugely contentious issue – colour-blind casting, which, normally, should be comprehensively embraced across the board. Here, however, Bergman’s crucial point is that the nurse and actress, initially almost physically identical, fuse even more deeply into an almost symbiotic psyche. So it’s especially jarring – and dramatically incoherent – to have an ice-pale Krige paired with Nobuhle Mngcwengi, a visually contrasting woman of colour, justly acclaimed as a singer/songwriter, but with a puzzlingly insubstantial acting CV.
So, are there any redeeming aspects of this production? Mercifully, yes. Stepping into Riverside’s pristine, aesthetically barren main studio – less artistically inspired than Trump’s bright orange, mad clown make-up – my oestrogen-choked genitals suddenly leapt with faux-orgasmic joy. And the source of my bliss? William Close’s lusciously imposing Earth Harp, all taut, shining copper cables studded with lights and sensors, invitingly strung high above us from the stage to the studio’s rear wall.
The effect? Gorgeously intimidating, like willingly entering a dominatrix’s hi-tech torture chamber, or feeling like human mice at the imminent mercy of a gigantic cheese-wire.
Ever heard of Laurie Anderson? She’s an avant-garde electronica musician, who pioneered tactile instruments, surfaces sensitive to sensor gloves that instantly release sounds. Hugely bolstered by digital reverb, the resulting music is a physically exhilarating, deep bass throb in our helplessly receptive flesh.
It’s an über-kinky, utterly cutting-edge cyber-fetishism, an ideal prop for an S&M, transhumanist orgy.
And Earth Harp player William Close – all close-cropped, spiky silver hair and killer beard – plays his heart out like a swashbuckling, psychic pirate, unpredictably hi-jacking our sympathies as the score’s sonorous, body-shaking chords demand. If this production’s insistence on low-key whispering and restricted visibility is a misguided attempt at projecting emotional intimacy, William Close’s bravura swagger makes his startling soundscapes anything but futile!
Persona adapted from the Ingmar Bergman movie at the Riverside Studios to February 23rd. 0208-237-1000
