Letting in Air

Old Red Lion
Director: Adam Quayle
Running until 28th November

Becky Prestwich’s Letting in Air is all about words; what words mean, how words sound, discovering new words and yet it is actually what is not said, the silences between these words that reveal the true story of this play.

Broken relationships and betrayal define this play about a father (Frank) and his son (Ryan) who’s already strained relationship is pushed to the limits following the death of their wife/mother. As they struggle through; neither really speaking their true feelings, a catalyst appears in the unlikely form of a sixteen year old called Amy who brings all these unspoken tensions to the surface with repercussions nobody is ready for.

Amy, played by the terrific Rebecca Elliot is incapable of not saying the first thing that pops into her head and can only speak the truth. She is a damaged young girl, who although sixteen, seems to be stuck in the mind space of a ten year old. After she meets Frank outside the theatre they become unlikely friends. Perhaps the first person she has ever known who hasn’t taken advantage of her, Frank is almost as naive as Amy to think that his family won’t read more into their relationship than there actually is. However, it is through the close bond that Frank forms with this stranger that he is able to address the reasons why he has never truly connected with his own son.

The superb cast portray Prestwich’s characters in all of their tortured glory under the subtle direction of Adam Quayle. Edmund Kente’s sensitive portrayal of Frank as a man who is just looking for someone to take care of is heartbreaking. Rebecca Elliot’s Amy is utterly open and completely honest. A great comic actress who avoids becoming a caricature, Elliot also accesses the tortured soul of this girl who on the one hand has never experienced childhood yet cannot escape from her childlike imagination. Ryan Hawley shows that still waters run deep as confused and hurt son Adam who struggles to deal with his changing family situation as it seems to implode.

Letting in Air is exactly what you need to do after this tense two hour drama which leaves you feeling as if you have been holding your breath for the entire duration. A fantastic piece of new writing which reminds you just how excellent fringe theatre can be – providing the space for new voices to be heard and Prestwich’s is a voice that really must be listened to.

Liberace Live From Heaven

Written and Directed by Julian Woolford
Performed by Bobby Crush
Leicester Square Theatre

Bobby Crush is Liberace, a decedent performer who has died from Aids and finds himself in a sort of musical limbo, while a group of heavenly angels (who are played by us, the audience) decide his fate as to whether he should go to heaven or hell.

Liberace Live From Heaven is camper than a camp site. Bobby Crush with his horrendous American accent aims to entertain with stories of performances at the Hollywood Bowl and mingling with the stars whilst showing off on his piano playing skills to prove why he was the greatest pianist of his team. While sharing these stories he is interrupted by the voice of God and St Paul, played respectfully (and quite astonishingly) by Stephen Fry and Victoria Wood. These voices provide a vehicle for them to clumsily debate issues such as closeted homosexuality and the contraction of HIV. As if that isn’t awkward enough, topical gags such as discussing Michael Jackson and Jade Goodey’s death are also weaved into the act alongside of carry on moments where a member of the audience assists Liberace with a costume change while the audience are left listening to shrieks of “oh aren’t you a big boy” and “oh it’s not going to fit”.

The one thing that saves this performance from sinking completely into a pit of inane nonsense is Crush’s piano playing. If you can ignore the ridiculous expression on his face for a moment he clearly is a skilled musician as he covers classical, bogey woogey and current pop songs all within the same set and quite impressively at the end asks the audience to shout out songs they’d like to hear and manages to play every one of them.

It is this final performance which quite honestly saved him for eternal damnation in the fiery pits of hell as the majority of the audience voted for him to go to heaven…. Who knows, on another night he might not be quite so lucky.

Marilyn Forever Blonde

Writer – Greg Thompson
Director – Stephanie Shine
Leicester Square Theatre

Greg Thompson – writer of Marilyn Forever Blonde has been involved in a love affair with Marilyn Monroe for over fifty years. After years of effectively studying her, he knows her intimately, not just the glamorous bombshell we are all familiar with. Forever Blonde is his attempt to humanise the image of Monroe using verbatim dialogue from interviews she had given over the years.

Greg Thompson must have thought all his Christmas’s had come at once when he convinced his wife, Sunny Thompson to become the woman of his dreams. Understandably she was initially hesitant to take on this larger than life character. Whilst it had been remarked many times to her that she looked like Monroe, she understood that taking on this icon required a great deal more than a passing resemblance.

However she ultimately decided to take on the challenge and boy did she take it on. Sunny succeeds where many “impersonators” fail – in that she doesn’t impersonate; she becomes her. It’s hard to pin point exactly how this happens; is it through her sexy cooing voice, with lips that never stop moving, her sensual walk (achieved through having one heel always slightly shorter than the other), her gorgeous, melodic singing voice or that with the glitz and glamour Sunny looks just like Monroe. Or is it something more than that? Thompson seems to connect with Monroe’s soul and captures the intangible.

We join Marilyn in a sort of an interview situation towards the end of her career. Sunny speaks directly with the audience as she takes you on a rags to riches tale. Since this play is created from her words, talk of her drink and drugs problems are almost glossed over as she prefers to discuss other topics. However blatant discussion is not needed as her behaviour and constant drinking of champagne throughout the piece tells another story to the one we hear. Her tales her intercepted with voice overs from people who knew Marilyn stating how they felt about her and various songs which she performs are weaved in alongside her dialogue, often reflecting the tone of the story she happens to be telling.

Whether you’re an obsessive fan or not that familiar with the life of this legend, Monroe’s is a story that will captivate all (and not just because you cannot help but be seduced by this starlet). Marilyn Monroe was the perfect creation but beneath the veneer laid a multitude of cracks which could only be covered for so long. Greg Thompson’s play explores beneath the story of Marilyn Monroe to reveal a troubled soul indeed. We’re all familiar with Monroe’s untimely demise but this piece allows you to gleam just a little more understanding of what drove her.

Aware of her sexuality from the age of about 13 she understood her power and was not afraid to use it to get what she wanted. Her success can almost be entirely attributed to this (and the fact she wasn’t afraid to sleep her way to the top) and yet it was also her downfall. Once she’s created this image it was impossible to undo and prove that she was more than something to look at and yet as much as she try when her insecurities surfaced she would return to her using her sexual prowess like an old security blanket.

Monroe was a complete dichotomy and this is why she has captivated people for decades – long after her death. She was a woman and a child, a dumb blond who loved Yates and Shakespeare, someone who used men but loved men deeply and a person who took advantage of others and was constantly taken advantage of herself.

All little Norma Jean ever really wanted was to be “wonderful” and who better to show that she already was than Sunny Thompson.

I Bought A Blue Car Today

Alan Cumming
Musical Director – Lance Horne
Vaudeville Theatre

Reviewed by Rachel Sheridan for the British Theatre Guide

He was in Sam Mendes highly acclaimed production of Cabaret and yet still one doesn’t automatically associate Alan Cumming with the musical world. He’s an actor (an incredibly fine one) and a comic, but a singer?

Well you can decide that for yourself as his one man show I Bought A Blue Car Today takes the audience on a journey through his last ten years in New York and is punctuated by musical numbers which relate to his experiences or have had an impact on him during his time in America, or that he just plain likes and doesn’t really have any other reason for singing them.

So the big question is, can he really sing? It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting. Sure Cumming can carry a tune and it’s no surprise to see several comic songs pop up such as Victoria Wood’s “Thinking of You” and “Taylor the Latte Boy” by Zina Goldrich and Marcy Heisler. However they are weaved in alongside of power ballads like Cyndi Lauper’s “Shine” and Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye” and even a few self-penned numbers. Performing these songs with an almost desperate sincerity, Cumming is clearly anxious about performing these songs well and you can’t help but feel a little nervous for him. He lacks the effortless ability of a natural singer and at times falls a little flat through his eagerness to communicate the song.

His witty repartee about his experiences in America, although a little self-indulgent are quite the contrary. Despite the nerves he discusses, his banter is easy and casual as if talking with old friends. As Cumming says; this is like a party; it’s just that we had to pay to come!

His tales of his life Stateside, mixing with the stars and performing at the Tony’s are fabulous and yet they are extremely personal as he discloses that he was sobbing in the shower just before meeting Whoopi Goldberg backstage at Cabaret. His stories although at times a little boastful are endearing and he’s really just a Scottish lad, excited by his life Stateside. Although it is interesting that he has become a citizen in a country which he had to leave in order to get married as they don’t recognise same sex marriages. He talks a great deal about his partner and friends and at times gets quite sentimental, although there is always a mischievous grin and a naughty twinkle in his eyes.

Whether he is the greatest singer in the world is almost neither here nor there. His sensual, dirty version of “Mein Herr” from Cabaret proves that you don’t have to have the strongest belt for a song to make an impact and whilst this isn’t the case for every song; it really doesn’t matter all that much. It’s Alan Cumming and even a story about buying a blue car today is entertaining when he’s telling it.

Stockwell

By Kieron Barry (edited from the court transcripts)
Directed by Sophie Lifshutz
Tricycle Theatre
Playing until September 20th 2009

Stockwell – an intense and thrilling courtroom drama; except rather more disturbingly this isn’t a drama, it is real life. A piece of verbatim theatre taken from the transcripts of the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest, this is a story that needs little explanation as we all followed it in the news in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings in London, reading with shock and disbelief that an innocent man (who was believed by intelligence to be a terrorist) had been shot nine times by the police on a tube at Stockwell tube station.

As the piece begins eight actors superbly take on the role of thirty people (lawyers, police, surveillance officers, eye witnesses and family and friends). It initially fells like a staged documentary, repeating that what we already know, however as the piece unfolds and you listen to the facts of the case in this 90-minute drama, you are drawn into this incredibly tense and disturbing piece of theatre.

It was two specialist firearms officers who fired the shots that killed de Menezes, however there were an abundance of mistakes that led to that moment, placing the blame on many heads. Why hadn’t the surveillance team watching the property where de Menezes lived realised it was a block with a communal entrance rather than a house with a private entrance? They thought it suspicious when he got off the bus by Brixton tube station only to get on another bus to Stockwell. What they failed to notice was that Brixton tube station was closed that day. Communication between C019, operation room staff and surveillance officers was completely shambolic as messages were misinterpreted and in some instances not even received. And probably most shocking of all is why when the firearms officers boarded the tube did they not state that they were police, leaving eyewitnesses momentarily thinking that the police were the bad guys (I know it’s ironic isn’t it?)

Of course as the firearms officers and other members of the police point out that when it is broken down it is easy to point out the many mistakes occurred but this operation took place at a frenzied pace. However as the confused counsel for the de Menezes family, Mr Mansfield (Jack Klaff) questions in his deliciously dry and patronising manner, why was it so frenzied and not a more slick and controlled operation?

This production is simply and sensitively handled and whilst you leave the theatre in no doubt that the police are entirely to blame for this wrongful killing (even though they remain resolute that the mistakes weren’t theirs) you can’t help but feel empathy for the two men that fired the shots and what they’ll live with for the rest of their lives. Of course the greatest sympathy lies with Jean Charles de Menezes and his friends and family who speak of how he’d previously praised the police and was completely trustful that the police would keep him safe.

The York Realist

By Peter Gill
Directed by Adam Spreadbury-Maher
Produced by Good Night Out
Riverside Studios
Playing until 11th October

Reviewed by Rachel Sheridan for the British Theatre Guide

A story of a forbidden love is always going to have its tensions and complications, especially when the protagonists are male and it’s set in the early 1960s in a small farming community. A sort of a Brokeback Mountain set in Yorkshire; Peter Gill’s Olivier Award nominated, The York Realist is ultimately a very lonely tale.

Two men; George (Stephen Hagan) who lives with his mother in a small labourer’s cottage and John (Matthew Burton) an assistant director up from London working on the Mysteries Plays in which George gets a part. George’s family brushes over the fact that he still lives with his Mother and is not interested in any of the local girls. Completely clueless, his close-knit family have no idea of his extra curricular activities. Interestingly it is he, rather than cosmopolitan John who is at ease with his homosexuality. Not that it’s something he can parade in front of the local folk, it is 1961 after all but behind closed doors he is very comfortable with himself. Much like Brokeback Mountain after their summer of love (or winter as is the case in this play) is over and John has to return to London, they are both left to face the reality of their situation.

Adam Spreadbury-Maher’s production is nostalgic without being stuffy. Home baked apple pie, several pots of tea and an elderly mother doing all her son’s laundry create a warm and cosy feeling within. Meanwhile the rug is being pulled out from under your feet with an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. A family that chatter endlessly about nothing in order to avoid what really needs to be said, they remain oblivious to George’s inner turmoil. This impressive cast take a very London audience out of the city and into Mother’s front room. It’s all very claustrophobic yet well meaning and there’s no chance of missing anything either as they all talk in that slightly too loud way of speaking to each other, to be sure that everyone in the front room can hear even though they are all sat around the same small table. Stephanie Fayerman as Mother gives a tender and moving performance of a woman whose son is the apple of her eye and Sarah Wadell as the well meaning neighbour, Doreen whose heart is sadly wasted on George adds some light humour whilst avoiding the trap of being the caricature religious do-gooder.

Hagen and Burton have a natural chemistry as these two men from very different worlds who find a mutual love and respect for each other. Hagen is adorable as the slightly simple George but still rivers run deep and his rivers are at times heartbreaking. Burton turns in an equally brilliant performance. He’s middle class without being pompous and whilst he may not wear his heart on his sleeve like George, his pain is just as palpable. The sexual tension between these two men is made all the more unbearable as Spreadbury-Maher’s direction allows us to think everything but see very little.

This really is a traditional love story like many others (although probably not the sort of love Mother had imagined for her boy). Two people meet and fall in love and have to overcome various obstacles that will either make them stronger or break them….ah they don’t make ‘em like they used to.

Catwalk Confidential

Catwalk Confidential

Robyn Peterson

Directed by: Tony Abatemarco

Arts Theatre

Playing until 3^rd October

Reviewed by Rachel Sheridan for the British Theatre Guide

Robyn Peterson is bringing a touch of glamour to the Arts Theatre as the swaps the catwalk for the stage. Well in actual fact she hung up her platforms quite some time ago as it was back in the 70s and 80s that she was the “IT” girl working with prominent photographers Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin and infamous fashion designers such as Dior, Valentino and Yves Saint Laurent. In her hey day she graced the covers of Vogue and Elle and appeared on catwalks all over the world.

One of the first supermodels, Peterson shares her experiences of life behind the flashing lens in her one woman show, Catwalk Confidential about a girl who certainly lived and now a woman who has no intention of stopping anytime soon.

Less Lilly Cole (her early photos bare an uncanny resemblence) and more Cybil Sheherd these days, Robyn Peterson is still utterly georgous and oozes sex appeal as she strutts her stuff down memory lane. Screens behind her flash with images of her home town Miami, Paris where she spent her formative modelling years and various magazine covers to suggest time and place. Peterson’s stories are sexy, funny, shocking but nothing that we’ve not really heard before from the bizarre and wonderful world of fashion. Her one woman shows covers a period of ten years from the age of 16, when she landed in Paris and started booking jobs to the age of 26 when still barely a woman she would already be considered past her prime.

Peterson speaks with confidence to the audience but lacks the natural ease of a trained actress. Her performance is very much a memorised speech and though these are her own personal stories, due to the nature of her delivery she seems detached from what she is saying. Having said this she is still incredibly alluring and succesfully charms the audience (although it should be noted that this was a fashion crowd and I’m unsure how much tales of a make bag weighing 15 pounds will translate to a less couture-savvy audience).

When comparing to stories of other models from the 70s and 80s such as Gia Carangi, Peterson’s story lacks the same substance. Rather than dealing with hard hitting issues such as drug addiction (although of course she had her dalliances) and bipolar disorder, hers is more of a story of how she catapulted to fame through stealing a wrap around bikini off another model for a catwalk show to become the talk of the town and an overnight sensation. Not to demean Peterson’s story in any way; it’s great to see a woman emerging from the modelling world so vivacious, rather than crippled with insecurities, it’s just that her story is a little on the light and fluffy side.

However her 80 minute show still manages to entertain with her dry sarcasm; “You don’t compete with brunettes, you kill them” and her sense of humour about the world of fashion; “Have you ever seen an outfit so perfect that it literally stops time”. If anything it’s a shame the show comes to an end when it does with her at the age of 26 as judging from the woman we see onstage I suspect it was after her modelling years that the story gets really interesting.