★★★

“As a vehicle for the youth theatre to show their chops, Rapunzel is a very charming production”

Theatre Peckham sits just a stone’s throw from the thoroughfare of Rye Lane, with its bustling array of salt fish sellers, street-preachers and salon owners. Their Christmas show this year, Rapunzel, seeks to bring that vibrant atmosphere to life in an original take on the fairytale.

Under the direction of Suzann McLean, also artistic director of the theatre, Rapunzel is a world famous hair-dresser at vibrantly pink and glitzy Peckham salon Barnet Magic – but things were not always so. When she was just a baby her mother’s jealous cousin Cassie secretly kidnapped her, to use as ransom for an inheritance Cassie was denied. Locked in a tower for 18 years, Rapunzel is none the wiser as Cassie profits from her niece’s hairstyling prowess and continues to disadvantage Rapunzel’s mother Maddy.

It’s an overly long and convoluted plot with jumps in time necessitated by the involvement of a large youth company, outnumbering the adult cast more than three to one. One or two of the young cast surely have a future on the stage, full of energy and goofy charm and clearly having the time of their lives. Jazz Deer-Olafa’s choreography is engaging yet simple enough for everyone to be involved. There are even opportunities for some of the most unassuming cast members to have their moment in the spotlight and it is heartening to see the passion that has gone into the work of the show.

The adult performers are a bit of a mixed bag. Scarlet Gabriel as Maddy and Kellah-M Spring as Rapunzel come across as rather flat and low energy. At the other end of the scale, Jade Leanne Benjamin as the evil Cassie is over the top, particularly in the way she constantly adjusts her various wigs. Montel Douglas provides some light relief as both a distracted detective and Rapunzel’s saviour, Dignity Jones. But Marcus Ayton as Mama Bea is standout with his lilting Caribbean accent and aphorisms on point.

Original musical numbers by composer Jordan Xavier and lyricist Geoff Aymer do well to use elements of pop, R&B and afro-beats to reflect and appeal to the largely local audience. The lead performers seem to have a hard time hearing themselves over the music and there are some weak refrains that are repeated ad nauseum. It also feels like there is a missed opportunity in bringing out the ‘rap’ in Rapunzel more strongly.

As a vehicle for the youth theatre to show their chops, Rapunzel is a very charming production. It has community appeal in its hyper local setting and plot of triumph over adversity. Viewed through this lens, there’s plenty to come away from the show smiling about.

OWNERS at the Jermyn Street Theatre

★★★½

“The production is deceptively complex and skilfully carried off.”

“Turning you out? What an old-fashioned idea!” the power-hungry property developer Marion exclaims at one point in Owners. Of course, what the play sets out to prove is that it’s not an old-fashioned idea at all, but a painfully immediate one: both in 1972, when Caryl Churchill first wrote it, and now, in Stella Powell-Jones’ production at the Jermyn Street Theatre.

Owners is concerned with property: with having and being had. Clegg wants a son, wants a butcher’s shop, wants Marion, who wants power, who wants Alec, who wants — maybe nothing at all. As Marion ruthlessly develops her London properties, she sets her sights on the flat where Alec is living with his pregnant wife. She also sets her sights on their unborn child. Owners is a play about the need to possess, but it is also a play about the need to be possessed. As it unfolds, sinews of desire stretch and flex between the cast, as they separate and come together, tangled in ever darker threads.

The production is deceptively complex and skilfully carried off. The set, designed by Cat Fuller, is a stroke of genius, with a panorama of doors pressing claustrophobically in on the little family. Fuller uses the tiny space of the theatre’s stage to her advantage. Throughout the piece, everyone vies for exactly the same tiny patch of hotly contested real estate, as a series of hinges and compartments turn one flat into the next. It also means that, even when one person’s life is carefully hinged away, it is still ‘present’ on-stage. All these lives stack on top of each other in a suffocating palimpsest that is extremely effective.

What is initially identifiable as something almost in the vein of farce, grows mesmerizingly misshapen and grotesque as the play leads us down darker avenues. This is underscored by increasingly sinister interludes of music (Sasha Howe and Max Pappenheim) and lighting (Chuma Emembolu) during scene changes, before the lights come back up and we revert to the brightly lit family moment. The sense of something dark and inarticulate shadowing beneath the mundane works very well, especially as Owners gathers speed and becomes more confident in its own surreal cynicism. By the end, it eschews the comfortable escape-routes that something ultimately closer to farce might provide, and instead embraces a grim cannibalistic quality that makes for some beautiful moments of dialogue. Ryan Donaldson as Alec delivers a stunningly haunting hospital scene, and Laura Doddington is incredible as the bullish, smarting Marion (“be quick, be clean, be top, be best”), and a personal highlight.

While the themes are still strikingly relevant, the production shies away from what could be a more current exploration of them. The choice to maintain the 70s setting so distinctly through music and costume (Agata Odolczyk) is visually very effective, but also serves to buffer the play slightly, making it a more comfortable watch. When Clegg the butcher charges a customer just 20p for a pound of mince, a titter goes up from the audience: this is not our world, really, then, and we can breathe a sigh of relief. In the second act, however, when the grim surrealism is allowed more space to unfold, Owners does begin to bite more. Ultimately, though frustratingly lacking in urgency, this is a well-executed piece that leaves you heading back to your cold flat and your rented room with a pit in your stomach.

RAPUNZEL at Theatre Peckham

★★★

“As a vehicle for the youth theatre to show their chops, Rapunzel is a very charming production”

RAPUNZEL at Theatre Peckham

Reviewed on 6th December 2023

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

Some recent reviews:

KeyPhrase

KeyPhrase

OWNERS at the Jermyn Street Theatre

★★★½

“The production is deceptively complex and skilfully carried off.”

OWNERS at the Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on 18th October 2023

by Anna Studsgarth

Photography by Steve Gregson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Owners

Owners