Tag Archives: Gregory Clarke

THE BRIGHTENING AIR

★★★★

Old Vic

THE BRIGHTENING AIR

Old Vic

★★★★

“a rich and entertaining family drama”

“How are you doing?”, a priest asks jittery Dermot (Chris O’Dowd) midway through this fine new play. “I’m fine”, replies deadpan Dermot, although “the circumstances around me are challenging”.

Dermot is not alone in his plight. In the ramshackle Irish farmhouse that is the setting for Conor McPherson’s eagerly anticipated Chekhov adjacent play, the circumstances would test the most placid of souls.

The future of the farmhouse brings the family together as uneasily as opposing magnets. Three siblings own the place. Two live there and the third – Dermot amid a midlife crisis – has returned from afar thinking there’s money to be made.

He has an ally in a blind renegade priest (Seán McGinley) – their uncle – but finds himself in opposition to his brother Stephen (Brian Gleeson) and sister Billie (Rosie Sheehy) who have made the place their home, combatting the damp, fighting off foxes and shuffling cows with a mindless resilience.

Like the mouldering walls, the family tensions have been left to fester so there’s more than a reckoning about property deeds in McPherson’s atmospheric and busy play.

Elsewhere Lydia (Hannah Morrish) wants a magic potion – “water with muck in” – to win back faithless Dermot’s love, but Dermot, railing impotently against the strictures of family, has found himself beguiled by 19-year-old minx Freya (Aisling Kearns) who turns up with an air of entitlement and her own little plots to pursue.

Billie, accident-prone and on the autistic spectrum, obsesses about trains, paint and chimpanzees. She also speaks in unvarnished and abrasive truths which is a useful means to bring simmering tensions to the boil. Stephen is angry – about having to look after Billie, but also having no life, no money, no love…

Writer-director McPherson says he conceived the 1980s-set drama in an airport after he was thwarted by Covid from seeing his own adaptation of Uncle Vanya. But knowledge of Chekhov is less use than an ear for Irish dialect and an ability to keep up with the scores yet to be settled.

The title, McPherson says, comes from a WB Yeats poem, The Song of Wandering Aengus, and “encapsulates that moment where dreams meet reality, and our most important illusions fade away”.

The ensemble cast fully embraces the opportunities presented by a phenomenal script, littered with miracles, mysticism and mischief. O’Dowd is a marvel, wiry and self-pitying. He brings his immense comedic presence to a play that is very, very funny. Rosie Sheehy is by turns blunt and lyrical, even her recitations of train routes hinting at romance and adventure. Morrish and Gleeson are the stoic heartbeat of the piece.

The first acts are all about slow-burn set-up against Rae Smith’s barren farmhouse backdrop. Which means the post-interval plot twists are something of a hurried cascade. Even in a play which relies on a hint of folkloric magic, the dramas happen unfeasibly fast, relying on an overworked denouement to create a sense of theme and purpose.

Pacing aside, this is a rich and entertaining family drama, delighting in the divisions that uniquely arise from semi-strangers who are bound together by the same blood and forebears.



THE BRIGHTENING AIR

Old Vic

Reviewed on 24th April 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Manuel Harlan

 

 

 


 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

A CHRISTMAS CAROL | ★★★★★ | November 2024
THE REAL THING | ★★★★ | September 2024
MACHINAL | ★★★★ | April 2024
JUST FOR ONE DAY | ★★★★ | February 2024
A CHRISTMAS CAROL | ★★★★★ | November 2023
PYGMALION | ★★★★ | September 2023

 

 

THE BRIGHTENING AIR

THE BRIGHTENING AIR

THE BRIGHTENING AIR

The Twiggy Musical

Close Up – The Twiggy Musical

★★★

Menier Chocolate Factory

CLOSE UP – THE TWIGGY MUSICAL at the Menier Chocolate Factory

★★★

The Twiggy Musical

“We do also feel light footed and energised such is the fun factor of the production, which boasts an impressive line-up of performers”

The overriding feeling coming out of the theatre having just witnessed “Close-Up: The Twiggy Musical” is of wanting to find the nearest police station to report a missing person. There was once an award-winning author, playwright, comedian, satirist, social commentator, observationist – with an astute and sharp mind. His name is credited in the programme as the writer, but there appears to be little trace of Ben Elton’s involvement, except for a sweeping pastiche of his trademark style here and there. We wonder if he passed the task onto a lazy sixth-former. And then we wonder how the book would have made it through the first week of rehearsals without being questioned by the director… oh hang on – Elton is the director.

Maybe ‘overriding feeling’ is a bit harsh. We do also feel light footed and energised such is the fun factor of the production, which boasts an impressive line-up of performers. It is quite a whirlwind tour of the back story of one Lesley Hornby with a few stopovers at certain landmarks on the way. Much of Twiggy’s life story is already known, but here the chain of events rewinds further still – to her parents meeting in the thirties, surviving the London Blitz and some choice moments of Twiggy’s childhood and schooldays. A retrospective, predominantly narrated by Elena Skye who personifies the iconic image we have of Twiggy, even though the character is reminiscing from today’s perspective.

We witness the professional and the personal. Her serendipitous discovery and rise to fame as a teenage model, her ill-fated relationship with the controlling and self-aggrandising boyfriend/manager, Justin de Villeneuve. Her parent’s support throughout her career, her mother’s depression. Her success on stage and screen, her shadowy moments locked in marriage to the alcoholic screen-star, Michael Whitney. The facts are fascinating and revealing. Many well-known areas are covered but there are insights into the dark corners too, all illuminated by the strong supporting cast and ensemble. Justin de Villeneuve is given a particularly hard time, which Matt Corner takes on with a cheeky, mocking self-deprecation. Darren Day’s self-destructive Whitney has moments of poignancy, which are manifested most strongly in song. The two stand outs are Hannah-Jane Fox and Steven Serlin as Nell and Norman Hornby respectively – Twiggy’s mum and dad.

“Elena Skye certainly knows how to put a song across, and the ensemble numbers are striking”

There is far too much unnecessary cross referencing of the ‘then and now’. Yes, we all know it was ‘different times’ then. The only refreshing twist on this conceit is when the father quips: ‘The show must go on. That’s what they say. Well, at least they did back then’. In that short remark we get a glimpse of the subtle insight that Elton is capable of, with what is a real and relevant indictment of the changing attitudes and their current effects on the theatre industry. But overall, Elton is thrusting over simplified lessons on socio-economic history at us, while glibly exploring issues such as alcoholism or post-natal depression. There is a positively surreal song and dance routine while Nell is receiving electroconvulsive treatment. And then suddenly we find ourselves in a fifties style episode of ‘Grange Hill’.

Despite racing through the song list like an extended medley of hits, there are moments where poignancy can show itself through the musical refrains. Elena Skye certainly knows how to put a song across, and the ensemble numbers are striking. The repertoire is pretty suitable on the whole, with only a few numbers showing the bruises from the shoehorn Elton is so keen on using. Some key cultural moments are glossed over while some are given too much airtime. And two and a half hours in we are suddenly offered a rapid ‘summing up’. Followed by an upbeat song and dance number.

The show does indeed end on a high that is greeted with a standing ovation. They say, ‘don’t kick someone when you’re down’. There is much to fault in this musical but, hey – the show can handle all the flak. It’s a sure-fire hit. And why not? It’s a brilliantly executed five-star show; with top-notch production values, wonderful performances, and a juke-box full of fabulous music. Just a preposterous one-star book.


CLOSE UP – THE TWIGGY MUSICAL at the Menier Chocolate Factory

Reviewed on 28th September 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Manuel Harlan


 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

The Third Man | ★★★ | June 2023
The Sex Party | ★★★★ | November 2022
Legacy | ★★★★★ | March 2022
Habeas Corpus | ★★★ | December 2021
Brian and Roger | ★★★★★ | November 2021

Close Up

Close Up

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