Tag Archives: Ali Hunter

Red Pitch

Red Pitch

★★★★

Bush Theatre

RED PITCH at the Bush Theatre

★★★★

Red Pitch

“It bubbles with slang and a million references a second”

Red Pitch is back at The Bush to much fanfare. The first time around it sold out, won awards, and received great critical acclaim. It’s easy to see why. It’s a powerhouse of a play, and refreshingly rooted in its time and place.

The show follows three boys Omz (Francis Lovehall) Bilal (Kedar Williams-Stirling, now of Sex Education fame) and Joey (Emeka Sesay) who play football together, and dream of being scouted, even as their neighbourhood is uprooted around them.

It’s a play about gentrification, and the way that communities are being torn up, the souls of areas being scrubbed away and replaced with generic chain stores and luxury housing. But it’s told through these boys’ eyes, so the developers are ‘renewing endz’ and much of the discussion circles around the shutting of a favourite chicken shop. They’re charmingly innocent. It’s fresh, but it’s still angry.

Tyrell Williams’ script is fantastic. It bubbles with slang and a million references a second, building these teens up into completely believable characters. There’s no question of who these boys are, or where they’re from. In many ways the boys are very similar, but they have very different home lives, as well as different religions and levels of affluence. They’re united by their shared dream of becoming professional football players.

Daniel Bailey’s direction is dynamic and energetic. Footballs are dribbled across the stage – there’s a shockingly intense fight (directed by Kev McCurdy), which has the audience wincing and groaning. The performance is in the round, with the stage becoming a football pitch and each block of audience as part of the stands, there is fencing and barriers between us and the performers. There are flashing lights, like at a stadium (designed by Ali Hunter). Amelia Jane Hankin’s set is bare, it’s an empty pitch. This works very well, it keeps us connected to the action, but also gives a sense of voyeurism. We are watching, and to an extent enjoying, these boys’ struggle, which is especially powerful when they are unaware of the severity of what they’re discussing.

There’s a genuine tenderness between the boys, hidden beneath layers of ribbing and banter. It’s a beautiful connection to watch develop. All three performers are very strong. Sesay’s Joey, is the most anxious of the three. He offers up backup plans in case they’re not scouted, and is the most affected by the change in ‘endz’. Sesay deftly switches between the anxious young man, and joyous teen. Williams-Stirling as Bilal is focussed entirely on the football, but his range is strong, giving us moving moments of pause and dramatic moments of comedy. Lovehall’s Omz is the joker of the gang, but also has the hardest home life. Lovehall effortlessly portrays the struggle to keep things afloat and to keep the mask of nonchalance in place.

There are moments where this fast-paced play does lose momentum. It meanders along, enjoyably, but at times a little slowly. There are movement elements, which show the boys’ aspirations, but feel incongruous with the gritty realism of the rest of the piece.

Overall though, it’s a very special play. The characters it explores are rarely seen on stage, and it’s moving to watch.


RED PITCH at the Bush Theatre

Reviewed on 11th September 2023

by Auriol Reddaway

Photography by Helen Murray

 


 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

 

Paradise Now! | ★★★★★ | December 2022
The P Word | ★★★ | September 2022
Favour | ★★★★ | June 2022
Lava | ★★★★ | July 2021

Red Pitch

Red Pitch

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Orlando

Orlando

★★★★

Jermyn Street Theatre

Orlando

Orlando

Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed – 4th May 2022

★★★★

 

“The fine cast of five deliver Ruhl’s honed script with gorgeous vivacity, tongues in cheeks and glints in eyes”

 

It is easy to fall into a debate about whether Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando” would have the same impact as it did nearly a century ago if she had written it in today’s climate. But we’re going to avoid that digression here. Clearly, it’s influence and relevance is as powerful now as it ever was, not just in its treatment of the subject of gender, but as a satiric look at history, literature and convention. Published in 1928, it was one of Woolf’s best-selling books. And the most enjoyable. Woolf declared while writing it that “my body was flooded with rapture and my brain with ideas”. The novel’s popularity and longevity were practically guaranteed before she even put pen to paper.

And it continues. Both ‘high art’ and gossipy at the same time it has been adapted for theatre and film, most notably Sally Potter’s 1992 release starring Tilda Swinton. Continuing the trend is Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation at the Jermyn Street Theatre. Choosing not to compete with the big budgets, this is a playful and low-key reimagining that focuses on the humour and the subtle mischief; without trying to shoe-horn the original story into a contemporary setting.

We begin in the reign of Elizabeth I. Orlando (Taylor McClaine) is born as a male nobleman with poetic ambitions. With dubious motives, the Virgin Queen adopts him as a pageboy, and a plaything, until her death when Orlando promptly falls for Sasha, an excitable and unreliable Russian princess (a wonderfully skittish but underused Skye Hallam). Orlando’s heart is broken by Sasha, so he briefly returns to his abandoned poetry before heading for Constantinople. It is here that Orlando inexplicably falls asleep for days and awakens to find that he has metamorphosed into a woman. Completely accepting of the change, she is the same person, same personality, same intellect, and while she stays biologically female her amorous inclinations swing both ways throughout the ensuing centuries.

There is a lot to cram into an hour and a half of stage time. The fine cast of five deliver Ruhl’s honed script with gorgeous vivacity, tongues in cheeks and glints in eyes. There is an old-fashioned quality that simultaneously has a timeless feel. We are in the past and the present. They are like a bygone travelling troupe of players who have pitched up in Piccadilly. McClaine, in the titular role, is a delight to watch throughout. Star quality is etched across their performance; a performance imbued with a deadpan humour that matches the ease with which the character switches roles, genders and sensibilities.

Tigger Blaize, Rosalind Lailey and Stanton Wright play the numerous other roles and, comprising a chorus, the trio narrate the story with clarity and precise timing, overlapping the narrative and weaving threads of comedy and insight into the dramatic backdrop. At one point, following the throwaway line “… then he was she…”, we almost expect the chorus to launch into Lou Reed’s “Hey, babe, take a Walk on the Wild Side”.

All in all, though, the production is not quite a walk on the wild side. It still remains relatively safe, veering towards the shock-free traditional. It seems that the memo about safety didn’t reach designer Emily Stuart, whose costumes are daring, colourful and brilliant – a highlight of the show – which add to the sense of fun and irreverence.

This adaptation teases out the theatricality of Woolf’s novel. If the innate radicalism doesn’t quite cut through, the playfulness, the wit and the satirical undertows certainly do. “Orlando” was ahead of its time a century ago. Today it is certainly very much of the time. Make time to see it.

 

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Steve Gregson

 


Orlando

Jermyn Street Theatre until 28th May

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
This Beautiful Future | ★★★ | August 2021
Footfalls and Rockaby | ★★★★★ | November 2021
The Tempest | ★★★ | November 2021

 

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