Tag Archives: Jack Condon

Cinderella: A Wicked Mother of a Night Out!
★★★★

London Welsh Centre

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Cinderella: A Wicked Mother of a Night Out!

Cinderella: A Wicked Mother of a Night Out!

London Welsh Centre

Reviewed – 13th December 2018

★★★★

“You soon find yourself grinning, then laughing out loud, swept along by the rowdy exuberance”

 

From the outset I knew this wouldn’t be a standard evening at the theatre. The opening set piece – ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ performed with absurd new lyrics – throws you in at the deep end and lets you know what to expect. The Not Too Tame theatre company’s Cinderella: A Wicked Mother of a Night Out! is comical, irreverent and deliberately ridiculous. The show is noisy, smart and streetwise, and you are never more than a few seconds away from another funny line.

To say this show is ‘loosely based’ on Cinderella would be a major understatement. Luke Barnes’ script riffs on motifs from that fairytale and rides a huge anarchic truck through the middle of it with no attempt whatsoever to be faithful to the source material. It’s so fresh, relaxed and spontaneous that it feels improvised. The small cast operate in your midst and ignore the stage altogether.

The ‘story’, what there is of one, explores the fate of the young, orphaned Cinderella (Gemma Barnett), who works in a pub with her smelly, suicidal dog Buttons (Alex Griffin-Griffiths). The latter spends most of the evening carrying a prosthetic leg. (You eventually find out why.) Cinderella also lives with a wicked stepmother called Judy Garland (Jess Johnson) and her ugly sisters Simone and Garfunkel. (Some of the audience might have been too young to get that joke, but I appreciated it). Played by Louise Haggerty and Naomi McDonald, these two absolutely steal the show with a relentlessly flirty, hilariously bitchy double act that’s a delight to watch.

Jack Condon inverts the character of Prince Charming so that his name becomes somewhat ironic. Meanwhile Jack Brown is ‘Mike’, an amiable compere with long hair, a beard and a glittery silver dress. Mike holds the whole thing together, although much of the show’s appeal comes from the way it seems to teeter on the verge of collapse.

Jimmy Fairhurst’s direction makes the most of the small space available, and it works because the bar in which we’re seated naturally becomes the pub in the story. A karaoke machine is utilised at regular intervals for the likes of ‘Rocking Around the Christmas Tree’ and ‘Stand by Your Man’, with the cast singing lustily and drawing the audience into the act without humiliating anyone too much. A few punters are picked on mercilessly, but the actors are skilled enough to gauge who is happy to play along.

Don’t be expecting anything approaching a standard theatre production: this certainly isn’t a plot-driven narrative experience. Plus, if you’re offended by ‘colourful’ language then it’s probably not for you. It’s perfect for a fun night out with a bunch of mates, but don’t take your young kids or elderly parents. The energy is infectious and has the effect of making you feel pleasantly drunk even if you’re still sober. You soon find yourself grinning, then laughing out loud, swept along by the rowdy exuberance. And if all that isn’t entertainment enough, you’re even invited to take part in your own karaoke session afterwards.

 

Reviewed by Stephen Fall

Photography by Chris Webb

 

Not Too Tame

Cinderella: A Wicked Mother of a Night Out!

London Welsh Centre & Touring

 

 

 

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East – 4 Stars

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East

East

King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed – 11th January 2018

★★★★

“a grubby love-letter to London: from a Londoner, about Londoners, for Londoners”

 

Going into the back of a Victorian pub to watch the revival of Steven Berkoff’s seminal play about the East End, seemed like the only suitable way in which this production should be consumed. East made its London debut at the King’s Head Theatre in 1975, and 43 years later, it is back at its original London home, under the helm of director Jessica Lazar, and her company, Atticist.

With a combination of: audience members with pints in hand, sitting amidst an intentional crumbling set and the show’s Musical Director, Carol Arnopp tinkling on the ivories, you were immediately transported back to a pub of post-war, poverty-stricken London. Lazar did a fine a job in creating a multi-sensory atmosphere to envelop and match the textured, poetic language of Berkoff’s writing – a quintessentially working-class British style that has gone on to inspire a generation of playwrights such as Jez Butterworth and Mark Ravenhill. What I was intrigued to see was whether Lazar and her cast were able to make this period piece resonate to a 21st-century audience, many of whom were born after East was first produced.

Bustling back and forth between moments from the 1950s to the 1970s, we are given snapshots into the lives, fantasies, hopes and regrets of a working-class, East End family. The cocky, energetic lads, Mike (James Craze) and Les (Jack Condon) bounce across the stage with youthful vitality and masculine bravado, in violent, expletive-filled outbursts. Mum and Dad drift in days gone by, reminiscing about the good ol’ days. The racist Dad (Russell Barnett) is nostalgic for the wartime patriotism of Britain, whilst Mum (Debra Penny) daydreams about how she could have had a different life. Mike’s downtrodden girlfriend, Slyv (Boadicea Ricketts), completes the line up, desperately wanting to escape the world she knows, as she debates if life would have been better if she were born a man.

Linguistically, Steven Berkoff created a modern day masterpiece with East. Fusing a pseudo-Shakespearean style with contemporary Cockney slang produced highly abstract yet recognisable, visceral voices from the streets. The whole cast did a tremendous job in tackling this complex text, giving it the colour and definition that it deserved. With jaunty vocal soundscapes and grotesque, exaggerated physicality, it was a complete feast for all the senses.

Anna Lewis, the costume designer for this production, made an excellent choice in deciding to use outfits that were universal that could easily be from our time, as it made the production seem timeless. Yes, there were many vintage references but, text aside, the archetypal characters that lay underneath, you would find in any urban community, of any decade. This truly was a grubby love-letter to London: from a Londoner, about Londoners, for Londoners.

 

Reviewed by Phoebe Cole

Photography by Alex Brenner

 

 

EAST

King’s Head Theatre until 3rd February

 

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