bad wine, Cambridge, cocaine, Julius Caesar, Margaret Thatcher, Shakespeare
In Reviews on March 9, 2010 at 2:14 am
First published in The Tab, 10 March 2010
My God, the wine was awful. The wine in the interval, I mean. We’re not just talking David Hyde Pearce-style “Oh my God it’s just called ‘wine’,” or even out-of-a-box gyppo juice. (It wasn’t, anyway. I saw the bottles.) To give you some idea, I was accompanied to the theatre by a friend from Serbia, who said it was worse than Moldavian vinegar. I don’t know what he means. Maybe you do.
I’m sorry to go on, but I can’t help it. One over-enthusiastic gulp was all it took; now I may never sing again. I tried when I got home; bottom G stuck in my throat. I’ve been gargling with salt for two hours now, and if anything it’s getting worse. I left Wolfson a baritone and came back a counter-tenor. FitzTheatre wine. Just don’t. Read the rest of this entry »
Britney, Cambridge, CUTAZZ, Dizzee Rascal, Mariah Carey, Ruth Mattock, tap dancing
In Reviews on March 7, 2010 at 3:03 pm
First published in The Tab, 6 March 2010.
Watching a tap dancer try to be sexy is a deeply uncomfortable experience. Particularly when, as happened last night, they’re set against blisteringly hot contemporary booty-shakers. It’s Cliff Richard versus Britney; Celine Dion versus Mariah Carey; West Side Story versus Grease.
You see, tap dance isn’t cool. That hot girl in the nail bar you’ve wanted to get on since sixth form? She does street dance. Your local librarian, the one with the squint and the perfectly centered ponytail? Yup, you guessed it. Tap.
And it isn’t just me: I could hear groans of agony rippling around the auditorium every time the lights went down and we heard the tell-tale tippity-tap of Mandy from the Reference section. I’m sure it’s fun to practise – not that you’d know it from the rigor mortis grins last night. Perhaps it’s even fun to perform. The problem is, tap is simply unbearable to watch. Read the rest of this entry »
Cambridge, gypsies, musicals, tramps and thieves, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
In Reviews on March 4, 2010 at 12:47 am
First published in The Tab, 4 March 2010.
What Ever Happened To Baby June? That was the thought going through my mind during the interval of Gypsy, as I meditated on the ponderousness of the first act’s latter half, which I felt suffered in the absence of Katie Taffler’s June. Little did I realise that Millie Benson’s magnificent Mama Rose would get even better, or that Tommy Crowley would blossom into such a brilliant stripper.
Yup, you heard that right. After a family-friendly first half, sustained by the combined talents of Taffler and Benson, Gypsy basically disintegrates into striptease meta-theatre. Boys need read no further: go book your tickets now. Girls, carry on if you want to know more about a play that chronicles the decline of a vaudeville troupe with more line-up changes than the Sugababes and as many hits as One True Voice. Read the rest of this entry »
"Think Happy Thoughts", Cambridge, Oscar Wilde, Peter Pan, Simon Cowell
In Reviews on March 4, 2010 at 12:45 am
First published in The Tab, 3 March 2010.
When I tell you I was grateful to be out of Pembroke’s New Cellars by 9pm, do not misunderstand me. Yes, Quality Street is infuriatingly vapid. The plot is pointless and predictable, the characters two-dimensional and the language whimsical even by J. M. Barrie’s standards. But the Pembroke Players, led by a marvellously neurotic Caitlin Doherty, did the best they could with a second-rate script and put on a very entertaining show. And let’s be honest: we might level the same dramaturgical criticisms at Oscar Wilde. His popularity is no worse off for them being valid.
That said, it would be madness to compare Barrie to the author of Lady Windemere’s Fan, and no amount of clever innuendo makes up for his lack of dramatic subtlety. “One thing we discovered during rehearsals,” confided a member of the cast to me, somewhat churlishly, before his stage debut this evening, “was that J. M. Barrie couldn’t write plays.” Read the rest of this entry »
ballet, Cambridge, deep-fried Mars bars, Sleeping Beauty, Sunset Beach
In Reviews on March 1, 2010 at 1:11 pm
First published in The Tab, 26 February 2010.
It must be dreadful to be a ballet mum. Imagine it: watching from behind a rictus grin as your portly offspring flounders about on stage like an autistic hippo, sighing, “You looked so beautiful, darling,” through painfully gritted teeth while praying that little Lizzie will lose interest before the next big show.
Because, let’s be frank, amateur ballet is horrendous. It’s not like playing the piano, which can be executed perfectly well, albeit at a more modest level, by novices. No: if you’re a ballerina, you’re a ballerina, and you’re judged accordingly. And ballet critics, even more than classical music critics, can be savage. Read the rest of this entry »