Tag Archives: Lucie Pankhurst

Old Fools – 5 Stars

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Fools

Old Fools

Southwark Playhouse

Reviewed – 15th March 2018

★★★★★

“poignantly explores the highs and lows that come with a long-term relationship”

 

Over the years there have been some iconic love stories that have been shown on stage and screen: Romeo and Juliet, Kathy and Heathcliff, Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy, Sandy and Danny, Harry once he met Sally … the list is endless. However, it is very rare that you get to see beyond the happy ever after (or the tragic young death in the case of poor Juliet and her Romeo). Old Fools, at the Southwark Playhouse, poignantly explores the highs and lows that come with a long-term relationship. As the show’s playwright, Tristan Bernays, explains: “sometimes (relationships) they’re amazing; sometimes they’re f*****g hard; but that’s the deal. Can’t have one without the other”. With no set and no stage directions, this is a very stripped back and honest piece of theatre. It’s the actors and nothing else, baring their souls and crushing the audience with their honesty.

Through a series of snapshots, we are introduced to the couple Tom (Mark Arends) and Viv (Frances Grey). From their first meet in Paris, right up until their twilight years where Viv is lovingly caring for Tom now struck down with Alzheimer’s, we weave back and forth between the key moments of their life together.

Bernays’ skilful use of language cleverly draws scenes together by topping and tailing them with the same line of dialogue – just under different contexts. Likewise, movement director Lucie Pankhurst proves originality in the way she can smoothly make a moment turn from the embrace of young lovers, to an elderly wife lowering her incapacitated husband down to sit.

The chemistry between the actors Mark Arends and Frances Grey is truly magnificent. Grey effortlessly shifts between the characters of wife, daughter, doctor, whilst Arends gives a heart-breaking performance as a man who is gradually caught in the dreadful grips of such a debilitating disease. The real triumph is seeing Alzheimer’s exposed on stage in such a brutally true light. With statistically more of us likely to develop some form of dementia, Old Fools is a stark reality check of what could lie ahead in our future. Nevertheless, as much as Bernays’ work elicits many a tear and a sniffle from the audience, it also produces some heart-felt belly laughs at his witty repartee between Tom and Viv.

 

Reviewed by Phoebe Cole

Photography by Nat James

 

Southwark Playhouse | Theatre and Bar

Old Fools

Southwark Playhouse until 7th April

 

Related
Teddy | ★★★★★ | Watermill Theatre & UK Tour | January 2018
Frankenstein| ★★★★ | Wilton’s Music Hall | March 2017

 

 

Click here to see more of our latest reviews on thespyinthestalls.com

 

 

Holy Crap – 2*

Holy Crap

King’s Head Theatre

Opening Night – 13th June 2017

 

⭐️⭐️

 

“fleeting moments of entertainment within its daunting 135 minute run-time”

 

The unholy love-child of Jerry Springer the Opera and Rocky Horror Picture Show, Holy Crap feels like a sequel to a celebrated B-Movie, desperately trying to reach the status of cult classic through an endless tirade of Carry-On sex jokes. In this tiresome ‘comedy’, the Heather Brothers’ work returns to the stage, directed by Benji Sperring at the Kings Head Theatre, the home of some of the best fringe theatre in London. Attempting a farcical indictment of the role of sex and consumerism in modern media, Holy Crap mutilates an interesting concept with a limp meandering narrative and musical numbers that imitate a sexed-up version of lift muzak.

Holy Crap follows the story of a pay-per-view religious channel, run by a motley crew of scheming conmen. As the televised religious fanaticism popular in the states fails to capture the attention of the British public, the frontman of the group, the ‘hallelujah cowboy’ Bobby de la Ray (John Addison) and his team turn G.O.D. TV, run by the very British and genuinely religious Destiny and Rex, into a thinly-veiled hard-core porn channel.

Unfortunately, the cast seemed to be still finding their feet in this performance, for characters that rely on charisma and confidence, generally the performances felt lacklustre and apologetic making the comic moments much less gratifying. However, specific mention must go to Rachel Marwood (Clarissa La Fayette) who’s standout comic performance carried the show through its more trying times.

Though the majority of the songs are generally forgettable patter numbers, inundated with biblical innuendo, vocal performances were excellent and the voices of Rachel Marwood and Letitia Hector are truly stunning to behold, leaving much of the audience slack-jawed. John Addison (Bobby) and Arvid Larsen (Rex) live up to the excellence of their credits with their vocal performances, howevers the characters’ lack of depth leaves them seeming caricatured by a rather unsteady hand.

Sperring’s direction is clear and distinct, taking full advantage of the intimacy of the space, the more interactive sections of the piece were certainly the most enjoyed, but his work is largely undermined by the amateur and derivative feel of the writing.

With Lucie Pankhurst’s cheeky choreography and some glowing moments of witty dialogue, Holy Crap provides fleeting moments of entertainment within its daunting 135 minute run-time, but in its critique of a world that holds ‘style over substance’, the Heather Brothers’ new musical mistakes its own failings for satire.

 

Reviewed by Tasmine Airey

 

 

 

Holy Crap

is at the King’s Head Theatre until 2nd July