Julius Caesar, Shakespeare's Globe ***

The Cast of Julius Caesar

Shakespeare is rarely as fun as this as Dromgoole won me over in the last performance of Caesar and my last Globe production of the season.The show won me over from the start with a puppet show in the groundling's queue giving the background to Shakespeare's errors in the play. This is what Dominic Dromgoole is great at, creating theatre which has atmosphere and excitement. Being the artistic director of the Globe, he understands the Globe the best, making Shakespeare's gaping script errors seem non- existent. Whilst the play has now come to a close, due to cinema screenings next year, I will keep spoilers to a minimum, however, there is a superb interpretation of the text at the end which left me with a huge grin on my face. I don't think Irving's Caesar sets the world alight but the young senate more than make up for it, with Thompson's divisive Anthony played almost perfectly. Having seen the 'Freinds, Romans, Countrymen' soliloquy (not the Carry On one) performed by James McAvoy, I couldn't see Luke Thompson holding a candle to it. Whilst he is not as good, obviously, he still maintains an emotionally driven performance. At times, the pace tended to drop but apart from this, it is certainly a production to remember.

The Trial, Royal Opera House Linsbury Studio ****

Johnny Herford and Nicholas Folwell in the Trial

For my uncle's birthday, I managed to get tickets to the world premiere of Glass' new work. Having been to the insight the night before and having received a sneak preview of Glass' work, the excitement increased. I came away amazed at the feet Glass had seemed to pull off. The plot is about a man named Joseph K who, on his 30th birthday, is arrested on the grounds of which the audience never finds out. He then tries to bribe, sleep and argue his way out court with little success. The score is utterly beautiful, being more melodic than previous compositions and, whilst Hampton's libretto does not always gel with the score, it adapts Kafka's work well. The cast too impress with a spellbinding performance from K who is onstage for almost all of the play. The other singers also have a equally tough job multi- rolling which is pulled off perfectly. However the stand out aspect of this new opera is Michael McCarthy's direction. His minimalist style helps emphasize the absurdity of K's situation with fantastic situations of bathos. In one scene, K gives a speech of the corrupt courts which builds in a climax only to end in the maid having sex with a student which gets the attention. This direction is also evident in the costumes and makeup. As you can see in the photo,only Joseph K is dressed normally and the other singers are dressed in a surrealist manner also displaying the juxtaposition from the seriousness of the situation and eventual denouement of the piece.

Matilda , Cambridge Theatre *****

The cast of Matilda

So many things could have gone wrong when making Matilda into a musical. Despite it's success, a beloved children's classic being adapted into a musical by a man who talks about a critic eating his own face in front of his children. However, the result is just brilliantly, spine tingley good. In fact, it was so good, it gave me a small warmth in my lower intestine. It is the children's show. They are adorable, charming and hilarious and pull off difficult choreography as if it was the most simple thing in the world. It is a masterpiece of the human imagination. This was the second time I have seen this show and was also the second Dahl musical adaptation I had seen. I am going to reassess Charlie and the Chocolate factory but if it had even a tiny proportion of the heart, wit or musicality of Matilda, I may have enjoyed it more. 

Pitcairn, Shakespeare's Globe ***

Pitcairn is a play about the island, based around when the British discovered it and the destruction that ensues. From the writer of Great Britain, One Man Two Gunors and Made in Dagenham the musical, Richard Bean here has gone along a slightly darker twist. There is something inspiring about the writing here. It manages to maintain a level of humour whilst having genuine intrigue. Within the play, there a several divisions that appear; namely class, god, gender and race. One minute the division on the island is due to the gender of the islanders and next they are arguing about God and science with relative ease. The acting is also fantastic, with all the actors putting in equally fantastic performances. No one stands out as being perfect but the play chugs along nicely. The set also works well in juxtaposition to it's venue. Despite all of this, however, when all put together, it doesn't quite work as a whole. I really enjoyed it but I can not say that it holds a candle to Bean's earlier work and will never be as memorable or as exiting as Great Britain.

Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare's Globe ****

Matt Doherty, Matthew Needham (Antipholus of Ephesus), Andy Apollo (Gaoler/Officer), Harry Katsari in 
The Comedy of Errors 

I have always known through word of mouth that Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors was more error than comedy so I was anxious going into Blanche McIntyre's production. I was wrong to be anxious. The atmosphere at the globe was electric perhaps only equalled by Henry IV in 2010 as the actors fell about the stage in a comedic fashion. The farce , in a see how they run fashion, starts with a Dromio trying to get a pair of pants hanging from the roof. This sets the tone for the play. It is a rip roaring, rollicking production with almost everyone, bar Lucianna, giving an above good performance. I would like to see how te good people of Keswick can offer when I go and see this play up there in October.

King Charles III, Whyndham's Theatre ****

Tom Piggot Smith in King Charles III

When this hit first arrived at the Almeida, I was extremely disappointed not to get a ticket. Therefore, I was delighted to get tickets at yet another transfer to the West End for the company.

And I could not have picked a better time to see it. I can not think of a more relevant play than this, immediately after the Scottish referendum and the talk of devolution still strong in the mind, this play directly addresses this question in a dystopian future about the death of our current monarch and the chaos that ensues. It is one of the best written plays to come out of England in the last 20- 30 years with Mike Bartlett giving us perhaps the strongest pieces of verse since Shakespeare. This, in turn, is acted with brilliant performances from Piggot Smith and Oliver Chris, last seen in Great Britain at the National. Actually, King Charles III makes a very strong double billing  with Bean's new comedy, recently transferred to Theatre Royal Haymarket. It both picks up on similar themes and takes them in very different directions. Great Britain talks about the press and their role in privacy whereas, in Bartlett's play, freedom of the press is a very prominent theme. It also is great fun. The audience laughed at the snide comments and in jokes about the royalty. This play, in my opinion, is a play that will be showcased for years and years as some of Britain's greatest pieces alongside Shakespeare's Hamlet and Bennet's The History Boys. If you want to see great writing on show, this is the show for you.

Oliver Chris and Lydia Wilson in Kind Charles III

The Moment Before I am Powerful, Trafalgar Studios (TrafExtras) ****

When getting into the theatre seemed too much for trafalgar studios, with the incompetent staff packing people into the bar and not opening the house until 5:58 for a 6 pm start, I was in a bad mood. However, at 6:15 until 6:40, the finest Shakespeare speeches were performed by some of the best actors in the West End. The performance started with a speech from Hamlet performed by Lauren O' Neil, then followed by Deborah Findlay reprising her performance as Volumnia, giving her soliloquy from Coriolanus, a role she last played at the Donmar during Christmas. These two impressed me the least. I only managed to understand part of what they were saying and could not put together the first part of the narrative. From then on, however, it was all on top form. Papa  Essiedu and Cynthia Erivo (next performing at the Donmar in an all female production of Henry IV) performed their last speeches as the titular roles in Antony and Cleopatra. They were both moving and moved the narrative forward considerably. However, James McAvoy stole the show performing Antony's speech at Caesar's funeral from Julius Caesar. This cleverly followed on from Erivo's soliloquy. It was brilliantly moving and engaging and had the whole audience captivated. It just showed why McAvoy is one of the great British actors.

Doctor Scroggy's War, Shakespeare's Globe ***

 

The other West End piece on World War One which I have seen this year was the tragically awful Versailles by David Gill. So, this Globe production had to be better.

Doctor Scroggy's War is a million times better than that piece about coal distribution yet still felt incomplete. The plot is about a young boy who joins the war, is injured and left in the care of Major Giles Gillies. I found the play itself somewhat too blatant with obvious reverential remarks on the British class system. Brenton's use of asides also seemed slightly out of place. However, the cast more than make up for shoddy script work. Full of Globe veterans, James Garnon steals the show as the plastic surgeon and establishing himself, in my mind at least, as one of the greatest British actors on the stage. His comedy in this and as Caliban in The Tempest as well as his darker side as the cardinal in th Duchess of Malfi. Catherine Bailey also puts in a blinding performance as the live interest of Twigg. However, the pinnacle is Bill Lyons music which was just beautiful from start to finish. So all in all, despite poor script work, the cast and musicians  turn what could be a clunky period piece in the style of Versailles, into a relatively pleasent evening.