Tag: Two Star Play Review
The latest Two Star Play Review from THEGAYUK.
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THEATRE REVIEW | Rise Like A Phoenix
★★ | Rise Like A Phoenix
Things have changed a great deal since the days of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, Kevin Elyot’s My Night with Reg and Tony Kushner’s brilliant Angels in America. HIV is something we can talk about more openly, people don’t die anymore, and, with treatment, can live a pretty normal life, though there is still a lot of stigma attached to it.
Paul Emelion Daly’s new play, Rise Like a Phoenix, is billed as a comedy, but, apart from some admittedly hilarious one-liners, it actually takes itself rather seriously, maybe too seriously. As an HIV negative man, maybe I found it hard to identify with the five gay men, all of them HIV-positive, in Daly’s play, but I’m pretty sure that the majority of my HIV positive friends would have a problem too. Too many of the characters were fixated on the blame game, how they acquired the virus, who gave them the virus, and indeed, not giving too much away, much of the story revolved around a love triangle, in which one of the characters had unknowingly given it to one of the men, who then unknowingly gave it to another.
I was hoping that a new play about HIV would take a more positive stance, but it seemed to me, that, for all the talk of the success of antiretroviral therapy, emotionally the play was still stuck in the 90s, with its reminders of those tombstone adverts. But the whole landscape has changed since then and we live in a far more positive world (in both senses of the word) than we did? Why was there no talk of TasP (Treatment as Prevention), of PEP or PrEP, the once a day pill that stops you getting HIV?
I’m afraid I found it all rather dispiriting and negative.
Performances were good, but Tim McArthur’s usually faultless sense of pace seemed to have deserted him this time round and the play dragged for too much of the time.
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THEATRE REVIEW | She Loves Me, Landor Theatre
★★ | She Loves Me, Landor Theatre
Mistaken identity has long been the theme of love stories. This love story centres round a perfume shop in Budapest where two sparring employees unwittingly exchange love letters via a lonely-hearts advertisement. Sound familiar?
The musical was based on a play that inspired “The Shop Around the Corner” and the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan film You’ve Got Mail.
Staging a musical in a small space like The Landor is fraught with difficulties and is a challenge that the team always rise to. One of the issues is that in a fringe venue there isn’t the scope for a huge dazzling set, scores of dancers and big choreographed routines. This puts the focus back onto the musical itself. In the case of their previous triumphs, such as “Damn Yankees”, this isn’t a problem. Where the musical is as weak as this one, with lacklustre and forgettable songs, lame comedy and a tedious plot, it simply doesn’t work at all and makes for dull viewing.
There are lots of positive aspects to the production. “Britain’s Got Talent” finalist Charlotte Jaconelli makes a dazzling stage debut and has a superb voice as well as a lot of acting talent. Equally, Matthew Wellman is a singing sensation with a beautiful voice and Emily Lynn also puts in a great performance. Indeed, the whole cast work incredibly hard to make this work. The Art Nouveau inspired set is well thought and cunningly used.
This production tries really hard but ultimately; the source material is so weak that the efforts of the team can’t revive this dated corpse of a show.
She Loves Me is at the Landor Theatre until the 7th of March 2015.
http://www.landortheatre.co.uk/index.php/booking-office/musicals/she-loves-me-93/ -
THEATRE REVIEW | Last Of The Duty Free
★★ | Last Of The Duty Free
Following on from the popular TV series of the 1980’s, Last Of The Duty Free see’s David and Linda having both pulled the wool over their respective partners eyes and reunite at the hotel in Spain where they began their love affair all those years before. But with Robert and Amy both arriving at the resort, suspicious of their cheating spouses, an interfering newly married couple managing to get the wrong end of the stick with every situation they observe and Carlos the waiter still struggling with his sore feet, the scene is set for more romance, confusion and narrow escapes as David and Linda try to reignite their passions.
The show reunites three of the four main actors from the original show; Keith Barron, Gwen Taylor and Neil Stacey all revive their TV roles, with Carol Royle joining them as Linda. The cast appeared to have slipped comfortably back into their old roles, with them all giving very natural performances.
Written by Eric Chappell, who co-wrote the original series, the humour was gentle and subtle, generating chuckles, rather than belly laughs. The comedy was very non offensive, and played on comedy staples such as mistaken identity, near misses, misunderstandings over unrequited desires and battles of both wits and the sexes. In its style, the piece was very traditional and in perfect keeping with the original TV series and in a similar vein to other comedy series written by Chappell, such as Only When I Laugh and Rising Damp. The story was suitably simple and undemanding; allowing the audience to be transported back to their living rooms of the 80’s to watch the TV sitcom unfold live on stage. The play, thankfully, didn’t try to update itself and cram in numerous references to its modern day setting, remaining faithful to its roots, with only the briefest mention of mobile phones.
The set was static and did have an essence of the purpose built hotel complexes associated with inexpensive package holidays, and the brief interludes of Spanish guitar music generated a holiday feel. Both the direction and the lighting were functional and the sound clear and audible.
The Last of the Duty Free is curious a show. Whether you enjoy this play will depend largely on whether you enjoyed the original TV series and the classic sitcoms of the 1980’s. The play is unlikely to win over many new fans, and you do have to wonder why the show is revived 28 years after it ended its highly successful TV run. The play may be described as dated by some in terms of both its setting or writing, but equally, could be described as nostalgic by others, harking back to a style of inoffensive comedy and a more established style of conventional comedy writing.
Last of the Duty Free is currently playing at the Sheffield Lyceum until Saturday 21st June 2014 before rounding off its national tour.