Tag Archives: Jermyn Street Theatre

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“Miss Julie” at the Jermyn Street Theatre

Howard Brenton’s long engagement with the master playwright August Strindberg has proved thoughtful and fruitful, with results here that are spectacular. No stranger to controversy in his own plays, Brenton is almost contrarian in his respect for his predecessor. And presenting Strindberg’s tale of a mistress who has an affair with her father’s valet so simply, with no burdening concept or take on the text to push, is a mark of confidence in the original that allows it to both shine and shock.

The direction from Tom Littler is masterful. With some boldly slow pacing that enforces naturalism and an impressive attention to detail, the play is gripping from the start. We first see the aristocratic household’s cook, Kristin, about her chores and waiting on that valet, Jean, who is also her fiancé. Establishing character through mundane actions is one of those things they teach you are drama school isn’t it? But I’ve seldom seen it done with more success that Dorothea Myer-Bennett’s efforts here. Based on the smallest gestures, the character fascinates, carefully becoming a complex and ultimately triumphant figure. Myer-Bennett’s close study pays off marvellously.

Along the way, we have the drama of Jean’s one-night stand with Julie. It is to Brenton’s credit that both get equal focus, aiding the theme of class conflict that powers his version and reflects Strindberg’s troubled relationships with women. The performances from Charlotte Hamblin and James Sheldon are excellent as they take us through Strindberg’s “serious game” of seduction with such precision. Sheldon works magic with his mercurial character, hot with anger and coldly rational by turns. And Hamblin is a true star in the title role, building Miss Julie’s mental instability for the first half, then going all out to become frightening and pitiful in equal measure.

Let’s not forget the importance of sexual chemistry – this is an erotic show and, as a mark of how smoothly Littler handles the twisted kinks, little skin is on show. It is also testament to the exactitude of the production that Kristin and Jean are such a believable couple: the shared cigarette or help with a bow tie become captivating touches. Their relationship raises the stakes and makes Julie’s plans for escape all the more fantastical. The mix of misandry and self-loathing from our heroine becomes increasingly uncomfortable in the small, one-room world Littler brings to life. It’s always an effort for a modern audience to appreciate the shame of a ‘fallen’ woman, so Brenton’s skill lies in showing this a play about more than sexual politics. And his triumph comes in making Miss Julie’s actions seem radical and tragic once more.

Playing in repertory with Howard Brenton’s version of Creditors until 1 June 2019

www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk

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“Mary’s Babies” at the Jermyn Street Theatre

Maud Dromgoole’s play is inspired by the real-life story of ‘Barton’s Brood’, where a fertility clinic run by Mary Barton, with her husband as one of very few sperm donors, resulted in the world’s biggest family. Updating the action to the present day and imagining efforts to reunite a complex network of siblings, some of whom don’t want to know each other, and a couple who have already got too close, provides plenty of plot that this short show manages to explore in surprising depth.

Thirty-one scenes are well-paced, and director Tatty Hennessy does a good job with their variety. Despite the help of Anna Reid’s design, which lights up characters’ names when they are on stage, things are still confusing at times. Sorry to be a bit dim. Some scenes are unnecessarily gnomic, playing with who’s who when the facts are already complicated. And although the play is funny, with Dromgoole handling sensitive issues boldly, not quite enough jokes land. Nonetheless, there’s some excellent characterisation and the dialogue sounds fresh, if not always believable. Two big puzzles come with the only characters not named: a registrar of births, marriages and deaths and, bizarrely, a grieving ventriloquist. The humour here falls flat and the motivation is a real question. Both scenes indicate an overall lack of polish.

While the script is interesting, the performances are superb. This is a play about a large number of people… with only two performers! Emma Fielding and Katy Stephens take on 17 roles each – male and female, of different ages and backgrounds (more credit to Dromgoole for how many issues this raises) and they do so impeccably. The accents do a lot of work, of course, but it’s hugely impressive to see some characters really stand out. Kieran, the “lynchpin” bringing the family together, is skilfully highlighted by Stephens, while Fielding makes a nurse who interacts with several characters a vivid role. In one party scene, nearly everyone appears, providing a heady theatrical moment where the play’s ambition and execution come together in memorable style.

Until 13 April 2019

www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk

Photo by Robert Workman

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“Burke and Hare” at the Jermyn Street Theatre

It’s all out for entertainment with Tom Wentworth’s take on the historic villains, Williams Burke and Hare. While facts from their 1828 trial provide some chills, the overall aim is comedy. A mix of shameless bad jokes and great theatricality, with a few songs thrown in, means the show has something for everyone.

The ‘true’ story of murderers (rather than grave robbers, as is popularly assumed) who provided corpses for the medical profession in Edinburgh piques interest, and a period feel is well conveyed. Events are presented by Dr Alexander Monro, whose rivalry to the anatomist Dr Robert Knox – Burke and Hare’s main customer – is a great source of fun. Monro has hired a couple of actors to help him tell the story and much is made of their limited numbers. In the style of The 39 Steps, they take on all the roles: the murderers, their associates and their victims. The joke is overplayed, contrived, of course… but it works. The show is funny, with some good tasteless touches, while carefully suitable for the whole family.

Wentworth has done his homework, but dissecting what makes an entertaining show with such deliberation makes this one a little cold at times. It’s the production, from director Abigail Pickard Price, that injects life: balancing a sense of improvised chaos with a script that requires great timing in a very small space, and creating a camaraderie amongst the cast that is contagious.

Personalities behind the roles are quickly established, adding real warmth, and the cast look as if they’re enjoying themselves. Alex Parry gets a special round of applause for all his swapping of roles. Hayden Wood has an amiable stage presence that’s a real asset and deals with an episode of audience participation superbly – even if you hate it when people are called on to the stage (and I do), you can’t be annoyed with him. Finally, Katy Daghorn shines playing not only Monro but the love interests for both murderers. Her accents are a hoot, while differentiating the roles shows fantastic skill. This talented trio creates the atmosphere and energises the show, making it a lively treat.

Until 21 December 2018

www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk

Photo by Philip Tull

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“Billy Bishop Goes to War” at the Jermyn Street Theatre

This low-key play from John MacLachlan Gray and Eric Peterson tells the true story of a Canadian WWI pilot and makes for a surprisingly gentle commemoration in the Great War’s anniversary year. Our hero, Billy, is pleasingly unusual: an unwilling recruit, accident-prone yet “gifted” and achieving a record “score” for kills. For most of the play, he is shockingly callow. It’s really Charles Aitken’s commandingly affable performance throughout that makes him watchable. Aitken grafts like a real trooper and carries a heavy burden. From caddish bounder to troubled boozer (and doubling as a couple of female parts along with way), he forces energy into a flat script again and again.

Oliver Beamish joins as an older Billy. Director Jimmy Walters allies the roles well, with solid work throughout, but the Billy who looks back at his youth is wasted and simply wallows in nostalgia. It’s with a small number of cameos that Beamish can come into his own, injecting, possibly too much, humour into the story. The japes around Billy’s scrapes go on too long and are repetitive, with weak jokes. The rest of the time Beamish accompanies on the piano – this is a play with music – but sadly the refrains are poor and the lyrics awful.

The play doesn’t get serious until after the interval – fair enough – maybe that was Billy’s personal experience. But then we get more music… and it doesn’t improve in quality. Walters highlights the play’s most interesting features – the role of Britain’s colonies in the war and the idea that the motherland likes its heroes dead – but the play itself doesn’t explore either enough. Worse still, Bishop’s “bloodthirsty” battle lust, so honestly admitted, is left unexamined. The drama and the horror of war are insufficiently evoked. In one sense, this is a useful corrective aside from the more prevalent glory-or-guts narratives of conflict. But the thrill of the kill should lead to a chill in the theatre that is conspicuous by its absence.

Until 24 November 2018

www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk 

Photo by Robert Workman

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“Tonight at 8.30” at the Jermyn Street Theatre

On the day of the London marathon, an award for endurance is deserved by director Tom Littler, the mastermind behind this revival of one-act plays by Noël Coward. Presented as three trilogies – that you can happily attend separately and in any order – the chance to see these seldom performed works classes as a Theatrical Event. With nine actors preforming 75 roles, everyone should agree it deserves those capital letters.


The groups differ from Coward’s original selection but still showcase his writing perfectly. As a comedian, Coward is seldom bettered, his plays full of wit and delicious satire driven by great observations. But we also have Coward as a writer of romance, with insight into the power and pain of love. And he’s an artist full of original ideas. Littler’s skill is to treat each text seriously, to understand the complexity of its construction, and every play benefits from this intelligence and respect.
See one, or even better see all three; it’s tough to recommend a favourite but here are some highlights based on the groups as titled.

Secret Hearts


This set stars with a sparkling comedy. Suffice to say the scenario of a group of actors trying to perform as a charity committee is as funny as it sounds. Theatrical back-biting and pretentions abound and nearly every line gets a chuckle. The whole ensemble appears and shows how even their abilities are. In subsequent plays, Boadicea Ricketts and Ben Wiggins fill a variety of smaller parts, but their roles here reveal them both as strong performers.

Nick Waring and Miranda Foster in "Still Life"
Nick Waring and Miranda Foster in “Still Life”


Musical hall veterans The Red Peppers make an appearance in the second play, the roles are ably performed by Rosemary Ashe and Jeremy Rose. But the piece hasn’t dated as well – a regional variety show isn’t something many people have experienced and it’s unclear how much respect we are supposed to have for our leading couple. But what comes next is unmissable: Still Life is the play that became Brief Encounter. It’s full of familiar characters, jokes and lines. Littler brings an admirable freshness to the piece and garners superb performances from Nick Waring and Miranda Foster as the star-crossed couple who sacrifice passion for the sake of their marriages. The chemistry between the two is so fantastic that it is transporting to watch them.

Bedroom Farces


Waring and Foster flex their comic skills in Ways And Means as a scheming couple down on their luck. It may be slight but it’s still pleasing. Another strong pairing comes with Ian Hallard and Sarah Crowe. First, there’s a take on Brief Encounter that’s purely for comedy with love at first sight, on the dance floor, followed by an oh-so civilised discussion about what to do next and a suitably cynical end.

Ian Hallard and Sara Crowe in "Shadow Play"
Ian Hallard and Sara Crowe in “Shadow Play”


The confirmation of Hallard and Crowe’s comic skills is clear, but later, in Shadow Play, they perform as a couple with marital problems that tugs at the heart strings. For all the cut-glass accents and wealthy posturing that often gets a laugh, both performers remind us that these are people we can relate to. A love gone cold and a struggle to remember happier times come together in a review of their relationship via a sleeping pill-induced dream that shows a surprisingly surreal Coward. The singing and score are startlingly contemporary. The whole piece is a revelation.

Nuclear Families


This set boasts two comedies and a fine drama. For Family Album, Coward’s target is the hypocrisy surrounding funerals. Victorian vibes through a stunning wardrobe make it a good place to mention the consistently strong work from costume designer Emily Stuart. The satire is biting and musical director Stefan Bednardczyk serves as a scene-stealing butler. Again, it’s the music Bednardczyk plays that provides the surprise, with songs serving to show snatches of memory and fleeting moods in a bold manner. There’s more comedy with Hands Across the Sea, a personal favourite, where Coward takes aim at the Britishers’ attitude to their own colonial cousins: it’s bright, snappy and eminently quotable.

The ensemble in "Family Album"
The ensemble in “Family Album”


As a finale, a psychiatrist is driven mad by love in another drama of infidelity that is riven with tension. Foster and Waring are paired again, and the result is explosive. Their intelligent characters are full of “clear cold sense” in a play of surprisingly raw emotion. The unexpected makes for a theme of much presented here. As with all the offerings in Tonight at 8.30,this is a humbling demonstration of Coward’s talents, produced and performed by an impeccable team.


Until 20 May 2018


www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk


Photos by Robert Workmam

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“Woman Before a Glass” at the Jermyn Street Theatre

At the risk of damning with faint praise, Lanie Robertson’s play is more informative than it is profound. But art collector Peggy Guggenheim is a great subject to learn about. Following a story of modern art, alongside events in an extraordinary life, Robertson’s collation of anecdotes and vignettes is concise and entertaining.

Peggy was one of the ‘poor’ Guggenheims – her family were millionaires, not billionaires. With the realisation that it wasn’t healthy for artists to starve, her patronage, notably during World War II, built up a collection that spotted modern masters. Taking art seriously, while being flippant about sex, she slept with many of the artists along the way. Robertson sensitively balances the anti-Semitism of the age with dark moments in Guggenheim’s personal life, and, under the direction of Austin Pendleton, Judy Rosenblatt gives a convivial performance that shows Peggy as good company. The show is a 90-minute monologue – that’s a long time for one performer – but Rosenblatt makes it seem easy.

It’s a shame the opening conceit of the audience being guests at Peggy’s home isn’t retained; the “Mio palazzo, Sui palazzo” invitation is neat. Subsequent scenes talking to her daughter off stage, or conducting negotiations about her estate over the phone, seem clumsy in comparison. It’s with the more pedestrian moments that Rosenblatt carries the piece, juggling Peggy’s loneliness and uncompromising self-knowledge with a scandalous sense of humour and an attraction to men in “baggy trousers”. There are too few moments of reflection overall but a final pianissimo moment means we leave on a high, achieving insight into an exceptional woman.

Until 3 February 2018

www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk

Photo by Robert Workman

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“Dry Land” at the Jermyn Street Theatre

A new company, Damsel Productions, gets off to a swimming start by bringing Ruby Rae Spiegel’s play across the pond from America. Set almost entirely in a high-school locker room, two girls on a swim team plunge into topics of teenage dreams and sexuality along with a brutal, but brilliant, examination of abortion, in this intelligent coming-of-age drama.

Hannah Hauer-King directs. The tension between the friends is terrifically handled and the harrowing scene of Amy’s internet-purchased abortion appropriately difficult to watch. There’s a suspicion the play itself is funnier than Hauer-King allows: two smaller roles, well performed by Charlotte Hamblin and Dan Cohen, perhaps suffer a little from this. A gallows humour pervades the text – depressing given the characters’ ages. And, to be fair, Spiegel’s craft lies in making the jokes painfully ambivalent – it somehow feels inappropriate to laugh at these girls. With such a sensitive subject matter, the naivety here may be just too dangerous to be a funny.

Marvellous performances deal well with the subtle script. The dynamics of an intense friendship fascinate, with Aisha Fabienne Ross’ sensitive Ester winning sympathy from the start while Milly Thomas’ “not nice” Amy has her troubled personality slowly revealed. Combining a cruel humour and dash of desperation on the girls’ part, the play sums up teenage angst for a new generation. Dry Land is a dive into young lives that may give some parents nightmares but should be seen by all.

Until 21 November 2015

www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk

Photo by Richard Davenport

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“A Level Playing Field” at the Jermyn Street Theatre

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If school is a long time ago for you, it can be a challenge to enthuse about a play with kids taking exams. It’s an important topic, yes, but it takes strong writing to grab you. Happily, Jonathan Lewis’s A Level Playing Field holds its own alongside the impressive group of plays set in schools (and whoever included a copy of Julian Mitchell’s Another Country as a prop gets extra marks). Plenty of such plays have aims, but this one really convinces that the pressure youngsters are under nowadays, within a pernicious school system concerned only with grades, is a serious problem.

Any play about education will touch on broader themes, but Lewis’ focus is concentrated and controlled. It helps that his group of pupils, held in isolation between exams, are a fairly obnoxious private school bunch, who are at times difficult to warm to. The observations feel spot on, with intimate insight that avoids the mistake of making anyone too articulate (sorry, but The History Boys were just too clever by half).

The large cast are well differentiated, although I’d suggest three parts could be subsumed. Best of all is the strong ear for group dialogue that Lewis has a talent for (he wrote the hugely successful Our Boys). The students make a convincing group of peers and the dynamics between them is a neat study with plenty of laughs. As they slowly start to reveal their fears and aspirations, monologues that relate to their university applications form pithy vignettes.

When a teacher finally arrives – Joe Layton as the production’s only professional actor – it brings even more drama. As the play darkens, the humour develops and there are some touches of farce – a good idea that doesn’t quite succeed. But A Level Playing Field continues to serve as a terrific vehicle for its young cast of 18- and 19-year-olds. It’s against the spirit of the piece to grade anyone, but India Opzoomer and Elsa Perryman Owens both seem to inhabit their characters the most fully, while AJ Lewis takes the lead as Zachir with gusto. Both Jack Bass and Jojo Macari impress with their comic skills.

Indeed, the whole cast, for who this marks a first engagement, show more than just promise in a production that deserves much success. And the timing couldn’t be better. A Level Playing Field is surely essential viewing for anyone sharing space with a hormonally charged Sixth Former about to embark on their A level exams.

Until 9 May 2015

www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk

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“The Green Bay Tree” at the Jermyn Street Theatre

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Tim Luscombe’s revival of The Green Bay Tree at the Jermyn Street Theatre offers history buffs a rare chance to see this groundbreaking and controversial play. Written by Mordaunt Shairp (great name) in 1933, the play is reported to be the first contemporary drama about homosexuality.

A love triangle between the older confirmed bachelor Mr Dulcimer and his unofficially adopted son Julian, whom he has moulded to be like himself yet who wishes to marry, isn’t presented explicitly. Instead, it is phrased as a battle of “luxury” against virtue. It’s clear enough what’s going on. There’s even a reference to men with painted faces on Piccadilly, once a notorious location for male prostitutes – and close to Jermyn Street. But, perhaps needless to say, this isn’t a positive portrayal of homosexuality so, while the play is interesting given its place in theatre history, it makes for distasteful viewing.

Luscombe’s direction is impeccable and his adaptation commendably unfussy. The set is minimal, so you miss seeing the “exquisite” room that’s supposed to reflect and condemn Dulcimer’s character. The use of modern furniture and a remote control is annoyingly incongruous in such a period piece. The Green Bay Tree is rooted in its time and place: its protagonist presented as predatory to a queasy extent and the psychology of the characters twisted by repression and class consciousness.

Richard Stirling is careful not to present Dulcimer as a victim and he has a good turn in catty lines that get a few laughs. But Stirling comes too close to making Dulcimer sympathetic; bear in mind the character paid a destitute drunkard to take away an 11-year-old boy. Poppy Drayton and Christopher Leveaux play the young lovers, fleshing out their roles well, but both their characters are annoying – one too prim, the other too weak willed.

The dilemma in The Green Bay Tree seems alien: money motivates Dulcimer and Julian’s relationship, so be it, but both are mercenary enough to admit that and the tension dissipates as a result. The angst presented – and there’s plenty of it – is performed with sincerity but the characters’ trauma seems so odd at times that it’s incomprehensible. Ultimately, the connection between homosexuality, narcissism and incest is so nasty that it overwhelms.

Until 21 December 2014

www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk

Photo by Roy Tan

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“The White Carnation” at the Jermyn Street Theatre

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After a sell out run at the Finborough Theatre, The White Carnation finds a new home at the Jermyn Street Theatre and started a short run last night. R.C. Sherriff’s story of a successful stockbroker’s life, which takes a supernatural twist when he returns as a ghost seven years after the war, has waited sixty years for its first revival and this skilled production serves it well.

In the lead role of self-made man John Greenwood, Michael Praed is a touch too urbane, but he deals with the incredible situation stylishly and is full of charisma. Praed delivers the play’s thoughtful moments well, including a burgeoning romance with a librarian; it’s not his fault this aspect of the writing feels like an underdeveloped J.B. Priestly play. Greenwood seems oddly tranquil with his predicament. The reckoning this ghost needs to settle is with his wife, but Sherriff adds atonement – as a kind of fable – too late.

The majority of the play deals humorously with the implications of Greenwood’s spectral status. Firstly, with the town councillor, played by a delightfully outraged Robert Benfield, who hopes to solve housing problems by tearing down the property he now finds haunted (he deals with matters in a far more civilised fashion than I imagine Eric Pickles would). Then with a nice gentleman from the Home Office, managed in appropriate style by Philip York, hoping this inconvenient ectoplasm will emigrate. The local vicar, Benjamin Whitrow, truly stealing his scene, trumps both.

Ridicule of the establishment in The White Carnation is effective, but gentle. Surely it all seemed a touch tame back in 1953 as well? Even Blythe Spirit has more bite. Now the whole affair is gloriously steeped in nostalgia, a fact that director Knight Mantell and his cast seem cleverly aware of. This quality affair is too sweet for sure, but it’s also a treat.

Until 22 February 2014

www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk

Photo by Mitzi De Margary

Written 7 February 2014 for The London Magazine