Anais Lone Archives - thespyinthestalls.com

★★★★

“wholesomely joyous and bitingly witty”

We all know how a fairy-tale goes: Baddies and goodies each play their part, the goodies prevail and, of course, they all live happily ever after. But how would you feel playing the same part forever and ever? Wendy (Anais Lone) has spent her forever and ever looking after The Lost Boys, cooking, cleaning, and being the nice little lady she was written to be. But she feels certain she could do something different; she wants a true adventure! Meanwhile on the other side of Neverland, Hook (Louise Beresford) has grown tired of the pirate’s life, and secretly pores over his poetry. No more swashbuckling and kidnapping for him, instead he dreams of perfecting the haiku. The two misfits decide to team up and rewrite their parts. But can they change their stories without suffering the wrath of the narrator?

The idea of the narrator as a fearsome tyrant is brilliant, represented by an omniscient overhead voice and a pink glow. The dulcet, soporific tone we all know as fairy-tale storyteller finally faces the modern world, where women can be any number of things, and men needn’t express themselves through violence, and of course that puts rather a spanner in most classic fairy-tales.

As you can imagine, the land of Happily Ever After is filled with tens and tens of your favourite heroes and villains, so with a cast of only four, they have to get rather imaginative. Aside from each performer playing a bunch of characters, there’s some great use of puppetry and props (as designed by Daisy Blower). I particularly enjoyed the two hats on a stick for Helena Morais to present Hansel and Gretel, swapping between the two as she follows a trail of imaginary biscuits across the stage.

The evening is of course jam packed with big musical numbers (written by Hannah Benson) aping some all-time classics. The musical highlight is most definitely the ode to Rocky Horror with “Let’s do the pirate again” (It’s just a slash to the left, an eye patch to the riiiiight) – hard not to join in with that one I must say. There’s a slight problem with pitch across the whole cast, but it doesn’t really matter when they’re all belting their hearts out and clearly having a whale of a time.

Writers Louise Beresford and Anna Spearpoint have created some absolutely brilliant characters – Baker Swife, for example, as played by Spearpoint has been banished for near on 200 years and has consequently engaged in a romantic relationship with her oven, Ken Wood. She has also created a ‘pick-me-up’ pie which basically induces a mind-altering revelatory orgasm in whomever takes a bite.

Normally a panto is written with kids in mind first and grown-ups second, but The Fairytale Revolution (directed by Carla Kingham), both wholesomely joyous and bitingly witty, is genuinely for the whole family. You don’t even need to take a kid as an excuse.

Reviewed by Miriam Sallon

Photography by Helen Murray

The Time of Our Lies

Park Theatre

Reviewed – 1st August 2019

★★★★

“a memorable and haunting tribute to both the historian and his work”

It’s not often that audiences see the dramatisation of a history book on stage, so playwright Bianca Bagatourian is to be congratulated for her courage in taking on Howard Zinn’s A People’s History Of The United States. And it’s important to note that if Howard Zinn had not been such a remarkable historian living through several remarkable events of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Bagatourian’s play, The Time Of Our Lies, might not be such a satisfying piece of theatre. The show at the Park Theatre, skillfully directed by Ché Walker, delivers a memorable and haunting tribute to both the historian and his work.

The Time Of Our Lies is an hour or so of storytelling and beautifully performed songs in an empty space presented by a highly competent ensemble of six actors who switch easily between a range of American accents, and a range of other languages as well. The seventh performer, representing Zinn himself, was ably taken on at very short notice by the brilliant Martina Laird, stepping in for an indisposed Daniel Benzali. Laird held the audience spellbound as she recounted stories from Zinn’s life, including service as a bombardier in World War Two, and being knocked unconscious by police batons while attending a workers’ rights demonstration as a seventeen year old in New York City.

This is not just a series of stories (and songs) strung together, vivid and compelling though they are. Zinn’s distinguishing feature of his life as a historian, is presenting the stories of people living through catastrophic times, told in their own words. Hence the importance of the moment in which the act of being knocked unconscious turns Zinn into a conscious observer of historically significant events. Later on, this consciousness leads to his determination to support the actions of his African American students during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. The play dramatises these events effectively and then goes one step further — it ties all these narratives together under Zinn’s overarching belief that you should never believe what your government is telling you. In his experience, government always lies — and often for petty, self-serving reasons — and it is only historians who can sort out the truth from the lies. And this is why Bagatourian’s play succeeds — she takes this powerful idea and dramatises it with eyewitness accounts of important historical events, including Zinn’s own.

In short, although going to a show about a history book might not seem the most enjoyable way to spend an evening, do yourself a favour and go. If you can find an American to take along to explain why some of the characters in the play are so significant, so much the better. But if not, you can always read A People’s History Of The United States. Both Zinn’s book, and Bagatourian’s play, are well worth your time.

Theatre503

Reviewed – 7th December 2019

★★★★

“wholesomely joyous and bitingly witty”

Normally a panto is written with kids in mind first and grown-ups second, but The Fairytale Revolution (directed by Carla Kingham), both wholesomely joyous and bitingly witty, is genuinely for the whole family. You don’t even need to take a kid as an excuse.

Reviewed by Miriam Sallon

Photography by Helen Murray

A Fairytale Revolution: Wendy’s Awfully Big Adventure

Theatre503 until 31st December

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Park Theatre

Reviewed – 1st August 2019

★★★★

“a memorable and haunting tribute to both the historian and his work”

Reviewed by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Tomas Turpie

The Time of Our Lies

Park Theatre until 10th August

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: