A hit on Broadway, David Ives’s steamy two-hander now boasts Natalie Dormer and David Oakes, well-known for their screen work, in its West End cast, with Patrick Marber on directing duties. That plus the tabloid panting over Dormer’s skimpy S&M attire should certainly sell tickets, but Ives’s piece has also gained spikiness from recent interrogation of the casting couch and the murky intertwining of sex and power.
Read my full theartsdesk review here
Dominic Dromgoole’s new company Classic Spring kicks off its year-long celebration of Oscar Wilde with lesser-known 1893 work A Woman of No Importance. A starry cast, led by the incandescent Eve Best, makes a strong case for the play, though Dromgoole’s reclaiming of Wilde in the proscenium arch theatre space for which he originally wrote is more of a mixed affair.
No theme this week, thank the Strictly gods, unless you count the tidal wave of emotion that saw a nation reaching for more Kleenex. If an overcome Alexandra wishing her late mother could have seen her 10s-scoring jive didn’t get you, how about Jonnie’s shoutout to the surgeon who saved his life, or Susan acing a jubilant number set to her wedding dance music in front of her parents? If none of the above worked, you may be a replicant.
It seems to be the week for notable romcom two-handers. Joining Simon Stephens’ Heisenberg and David Ireland’s The End of Hope is David Eldridge’s meditation on the loneliness and halting longing of modern relationships.
The actress discusses Dominic Dromgoole’s production of Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance at Vaudeville Theatre.
On my October MoveTo Town and Country Arts page:
On my September MoveTo Town and Country Arts page:
For the premiere work of new company Elliott & Harper Productions, director Marianne Elliott got the Curious Incident band back together, from playwright Simon Stephens to her acclaimed creative team. But it’s in service of a much more intimate piece that – while strikingly staged – at times feels like an odd fit for a West End house.
Ah, Movie Week, AKA Can You Remotely Recognise The Dance Under Ten Layers of Theming Week. This was no exception – I had to keep checking my notes to see which dance was supposedly being represented. Also: Trolls. I’m just leaving that there.
A year after premiering acclaimed French playwright Florian Zeller’s The Truth, London’s Menier Chocolate Factory now hosts The Lie – which, as the name suggests, acts as a companion piece of sorts. Once again, we’re in a slippery Pinteresque realm, the seemingly conventional domestic set-up teasingly deconstructed as Zeller challenges our conception of honesty and morality.
