Tag Archives: Simon Rouse

Noises Off

Noises Off

★★★★

Garrick Theatre

Noises Off

Noises Off

Garrick Theatre

Reviewed – 3rd October

★★★★

 

“a gloriously silly evening”

 

When all around is strife and uncertainty, there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned plate of… farce. Thirty-seven years after its debut performance at the Lyric Hammersmith, Michael Frayn’s play of backstage antics bleeding into on stage catastrophe is as thigh-slappingly funny as ever.

For West End audiences used to the meta-theatricality of Mischief Theatre’s ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ will find themselves on familiar territory here – Mischief’s hugely successful show it essentially a full-length take on Frayn’s final act. What this production allows however is a look behind the scenes, seeing the love triangles, squabbles and gossip that take places in corners the audience normally cannot see. Act One introduces the array of wonderfully exuberant characters in rehearsal, Act Two takes us literally behind the scenes to show how love breaks this particularly touring company apart, and Act Three takes us further along the tour when the actor’s exasperation causes absolute chaos onstage.

The joy is seeing all the jokes set up in Act One come to fruition in Act Three. Jeremy Herrin’s production keeps the energy high and the pace quick. His ensemble leap to the challenge. Sarah Hadland is gossipy dame using balletic posture and glued on grins to see the show through. Richard Henders plays an excellent Frederick Fellowes, epitomising the actor seeking meaning for every move he makes. Simon Rouse plays a drunken octogenarian with aplomb and Lloyd Owen is a suitably sarcastic and exasperated director. Meera Syal, as Dotty Otley, lives up to her name, unable to remember when to bring sardines on and when to bring them off.

Max Jones’ set is nicely modern, and the costumes fit into the present day well. This is pastiche of a genre that will always please. The audience tonight was guffawing in the stalls. My only reservation is in the casting – it could have been a little more inventive. That aside, this is a gloriously silly evening of comedy that will leave anyone with sore cheeks and good spirits. Fans of Mischief Theatre would be advised to check this out, along with anyone else interested in the theatricality of theatre and what madcap relationships go on behind the scenes. It might leave you wondering why anyone would get involved in the game of theatre. But it’s the precariousness of live theatre itself that will always be the most entertaining thing on stage.

 

Reviewed by Joseph Prestwich

Photography by Helen Maybanks

 


Noises Off

Garrick Theatre until 4th January

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Rip It Up – The 60s | ★★★ | February 2019
Bitter Wheat | ★★★★ | June 2019
Brainiac Live! | ★★★★ | August 2019

 

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Review of Insignificance – 5 Stars

Insignificance

Insignificance

Arcola Theatre

Reviewed – 28th October 2017

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

“Johnson embodies Marilyn’s vivacity, fragility and bravery in a way that is delightful and ultimately heartbreaking”

 

This production of Terry Johnson’s play is beautifully suited to the intimacy of the Arcola. The action takes place in a hotel room during the course of one night. The four characters are unnamed, they are the Professor, the Actress, the Ball Player and the Senator but we know who they are, as they are iconic; Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio and Senator Joe McCarthy. I wish the conversations between Einstein and Monroe had really taken place but, although they almost certainly did not, can we be sure of that?

The plausibility of the events and their unlikelihood combine in a delicious uncertainty that is mirrored in conversations about relativity, Heisenberg and Schrödinger’s cat. If this all sounds a bit heavy please don’t be put off, this is a very funny play. If you can imagine Marilyn Monroe explaining relativity to Einstein, using a toy car, some torches and two toy trains, you can see the wonderful absurd genius of Johnson’s work. Both Monroe, played by Alice Bailey Johnson and and Simon Rouse’s Einstein are magnificent. Johnson embodies Marilyn’s vivacity, fragility and bravery in a way that is delightful and ultimately heartbreaking. Rouse’s Einstein is like a much loved and very clever uncle, who takes the extraordinary night in his stride. The relationship that develops between the two is touching and believable. The real Marilyn was widely read, and certainly not a dumb blond. Her notebooks include musings about many topics, including the renaissance and recipes for stuffing mix. Marilyn was an invention and here we see glimpses of what the real woman may have been like. I would love her to have chatted to Einstein but, despite rumours that they had an affair, they probably did not even meet.

Marilyn is not the first visitor to Einstein’s Manhattan hotel room that night. That is Senator McCarthy, played with menace and increasing vitriol by Tom Mannion. He wants to ensure Einstein’s attendance at the Un-American Affairs Committee in the morning, but Einstein is not to be bullied. The next visitor is Marilyn, coming straight from filming the famous skirt over the hot air vent scene from ‘The Seven Year Itch.’ And then her husband, Joe DiMaggio, arrives. He is full of jealousy and suspicion, furious about the scene Marilyn has just filmed, which was watched by thousands of men. He has no idea how to handle his clever, damaged wife. Oliver Hembrough’s gum chewing DiMaggio gets affirmation from finding his picture on baseball cards, and blusters and postures in a way that is both infuriating yet somehow touching in his inability to understand.

This is a play about fame and politics, about surviving and making choices. There is sadness and doubt in everyone but especially McCarthy, who grows more brutish as the night wears on. Marilyn says that she has ‘more than I dreamed of and nothing I want,’ her fragility is haunting. Einstein is shadowed with guilt because of the contribution his work made to the development of the atom bomb. DiMaggio truly loves his wife but has no idea how to keep her. There is no neat resolution here, but the themes of the play have relevance to current political concerns in the States and the treatment of women in Hollywood today. This is a timely revival of Johnson’s play and well worth seeing.

 

Reviewed by Katre

Photography by Alex Brenner

 

 

 

INSIGNIFICANCE

is at The Arcola Theatre until 18th November

 

 

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