Allegro at Southwark Playhouse

Photo credit: Scott Rylander
Fringe favourite Southwark Playhouse has been hit (Grand Hotel) or miss (Grey Gardens) for me lately, but since I have seen some of the most wonderful shows at this venue I'm always keen to check them out when they put on another musical I've yet to see on stage. They're great at bringing smaller or unknown productions to London audiences and Allegro, one of Rodgers & Hammerstein's lesser known works, is one of those. Despite being created in 1947, the Southwark Playhouse production marks the musical's professional European premiere.

The Go-Between at the Apollo Theatre

Photo credit: Johan Persson
The Go-Between is a musical adaptation of the classic novel by L.P. Hartley about a young boy, Leo, who during one faithful summer holiday serves as a secret messenger between a privileged rich girl and a nearby farmer. While Leo initially feels honoured to be their private postman, when tension mounts and he becomes aware of the true nature of the messages, it turns his happy care-free summer into something that leaves permanent emotional scars. The show opens with a much older version of Leo rediscovering his diary from that faithful summer decades later and reliving the moments that left him to become a tortured adult.

Book review: The Weightless World by Anthony Trevelyan

My edition: Paperback (proof), published on 18 June 2015 by Galley Beggar Press, 260 pages.

Description: Steven Strauss is just where he doesn’t want to be: on a ‘business trip’ to India with his boss Raymond Ess, the charismatic and chaotic founder of Resolute Aviation. Lately the company has fallen on hard times – indeed Steven and his fellow employees have accepted that Resolute is dead and they’re all going to lose their jobs. But not Raymond Ess. Ess is determined to save his beloved company, and to this end he’s devised an audacious rescue plan. He claims that during his recent travels he has come across a man, a recluse of the Indian wilds, who is willing to sell his remarkable invention: an antigravity machine. Now, with Steven in tow, Ess has returned to India planning to buy the machine, to bring it to market and thereby right all wrongs, recover all losses, restore all reputations.

Steven knows it is madness. He knows antigravity machines don’t exist. He knows also that last year Raymond Ess had a spectacular mental breakdown. However in India, Steven will find there is much that he doesn’t know. Who is this reclusive inventor, this Tarik Kundra, and does he even exist? Who is this guide who will take them to find him in the country’s most remote wilderness, Asha Jarwal? And who is this bumbling, soft-spoken elderly American, Harry Altman, and why is he suddenly everywhere Ess and Steven go?

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Book review: Annihilation (Southern Reach #1) by Jeff VanderMeer

My edition: Hardcover, published on 27 February 2014 by Fourth Estate, 195 pages.

Description: For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious, remote, and concealed by the government as an environmental disaster zone even though it is to all appearances pristine wilderness. For thirty years, too, the secret agency known as the Southern Reach has monitored Area X and sent in expeditions to try to discover the truth. Some expeditions have suffered terrible consequences. Others have reported nothing out of the ordinary. Now, as Area X seems to be changing and perhaps expanding, the next expedition will attempt to succeed where all others have failed. What is happening in Area X? What is the true nature of the invisible border that surrounds it?

Annihilation tells the story of the twelfth expedition through the narration of a nameless biologist attached to the mission. A reticent, solitary woman, the biologist brings her own personal secrets with her. She is accompanied by a psychologist, anthropologist, and surveyor, their stated mission to chart the wilderness, take samples, and expand the Southern Reach’s understanding of Area X.

But they soon find out that the information given to them about Area X is incomplete or inaccurate, and that they are being manipulated by forces both strange and all too familiar. The old abandoned lighthouse on the coast is more than it seems. A moaning in the distance at dusk appears to have no natural cause. A tunnel plunging into the ground isn’t on any map.

In Area X, they will all find out what it truly means to face the unknown. Adapt or die.

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Book review: The Looking Glass House by Vanessa Tait

My edition: Paperback (proof), to be published on 2 July 2015 by Corvus, 298 pages.

Description: Oxford, 1862. As Mary Prickett takes up her post as governess to the daughters of the Dean of Christ Church, she is thrust into a strange new world. Mary is poor and plain and desperate for change but the little girls in her care see and understand far more than their naive new teacher. And there is another problem: Mary does not like children, especially the precocious Alice Liddell.

When Mary meets Charles Dodgson, the Christ Church mathematics tutor, at a party at the Deanery, she wonders if he may be the person to transform her life. Flattered by his attentions, Mary begins to believe that she could be more than just an overlooked, dowdy governess.

One sunny day, as Mary chaperones the Liddells on a punting trip, Mr Dodgson tells the story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But Mary is determined to become Mr Dodgson's muse ­ and will turn all the lives around her topsy-turvy in pursuit of her obsession.

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Book review: Paper Swans by Jessica Thompson

My edition: Paperback, published on 31 July 2014 by Coronet, 438 pages.

Description: Ben Lawrence seems to have it all - the hot job, the flashy car, the luxurious apartment. But one tragic day in his past mars his future. Since the events of that day he hasn't truly got close to anyone. He made a promise that love was the price he would pay for his mistakes.

When Effy Jones - a bright, ambitious charity founder - walks into the PR firm where Ben works, neither realise that their lives are about to be turned upside down.

Paper Swans tells of how love can conquer all, and how when everything is broken one person can help to put the pieces together...

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Theatre review: McQueen at St James Theatre

©Specular

The opening to sort-of-biopic McQueen is like one of the designer's fashion shows; fantastical. Mannequins set the stage with almost ethereal movements until it's near impossible to distinguish between the plastic figures and those portrayed by actors. When they have found their places in the designer's workspace, a fragile, almost bird-like girl enters, Dahlia (Dianna Agron). When Alexander 'Lee' McQueen (Stephen Wight) finds the intruder he thinks she's just a fan, but somehow she manages to convince him to make her a dress and as they spend the night together he realises they have more in common than he initially thought.

Theatre review: Made in Dagenham

For the past six months it has been very quiet in terms of big, exciting new shows moving into the West End, but with autumn comes a change of wind to the theatre capital of the UK with many new musicals and high-profile plays opening in short succession. For the longest of time I was most excited for the opening of British-born Made in Dagenham, starring none other than Gemma Arterton.

Theatre review: Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre

Damn Yankees cast (c)Roy Tan
With The Pajama Game having just departed the West End, another Broadway classic from composer and lyricist-duo Richard Adler & Jerry Ross and playwright George Abbott has made its way onto a London stage; Damn Yankees. Rather than gracing the boards of a grand venue on the capital's famous Shaftesbury Avenue, the cast fill a small space at the back of a pub in Clapham. It was my first visit to the Landor Theatre and while I initially wasn't convinced when I heard about its location, having just three rows of seats meant the view was unrestricted for all audience members and the intimate setting added to the charm of the space.

The Pajama Game wasn't flawless but it was good old-fashioned fun (read my full review here) and I was excited to see another production from the creative team behind the show, especially since the original run won an astonishing eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Unfortunately this Faustian story, which originally opened on Broadway in the mid-1950s, hasn't aged well. The book felt dated and even the enthusiastic performances from the largely graduate cast weren't able to insert some much-needed joie de vivre into the show.


Alex Lodge (Joe Hardy) and Jonathan D. Ellis (Mr. Applegate) (c)Roy Tan
The story is this: Joe Hardy in an overweight middle-aged man who is obsessed with baseball. While he is reasonably happy in his marriage, his single-minded love for the game makes him easily deceptable when the slick Mr. Applegate offers him the chance of a lifetime. He promises to turn Joe back to his prime but with one exception, Joe will no longer just love baseball, he'll actually be an all-star player who will lead his team to victory. The offer sounds too good to be true, which of course it is as Mr. Applegate is none other than the Devil himself and everyone knows that if you strike a deal with hell's dictator that you'll end up getting hurt. 

While this may sound like the Joe Hardy show, it's in actual fact Jonathan D. Ellis' portrayal of Mr. Applegate that steals the show, though that is not necessarily a good thing. While he certainly oozes charisma as the flamboyant devil, egged on by the audience he hammers up his performance and milks his scenes until the character becomes a caricature of himself. The over the top approach became aggravating after a while and seemed out of place in the otherwise dated material. Alex Lodge's understated performance as Joe Hardy on the other hand was charming if somewhat inexperienced considering he is supposed to be a middle-aged man, even if he does look like a hotshot in his early twenties. 


Alex Lodge (Joe Hardy) and Poppy Tierney (Lola) (c)Roy Tan
Musically the majority of the gentler songs in this show weren't very memorable, save A Man Doesn't Know but that too came across as a slightly inferior version of Hey There from The Pajama Game. Damn Yankees' strength lies in the big and bold ensemble numbers. With a slick choreography by Robbie O'Reilly (who rightfully so has been nominated for an Off West End award for his work on the show) and beautiful harmonies, the rare moments this production shines are with the fabulously fun Heart, Shoeless Joe and The Game. With so much potential it's a shame then that there was no big showstopper before the interval or even a grand finale.

Returning to London so soon after The Pajama Game, it's inevitable to draw comparison between that and Damn Yankees and unfortunately it is the former that has both a superior book and music, not to mention a subject matter that is far less all-American and so more easily relatable for UK audiences. Damn Yankees did have its moments with a few big show numbers, an unanimously enthusiastic cast and delightful acoustics in the intimate space of the Landor where I'll certainly be returning to, but with dialogue such as "go home, get married and have children" the book showed its age and with a heavy focus on the least likeable character this isn't the home-run it could have been.




Damn Yankees is running at the Landor Theatre until 8 November 2014, you can buy tickets here.

Book review: Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes

My edition: Paperback (proof), published on 1 August 2014 by HarperCollins, 528 pages.

Description: Detective Gabi Versado has hunted down many monsters during her eight years in Homicide. But she’s never seen anything like this.

He is a broken man. The ambitions which once drove him are dead. Now he has new dreams – of flesh and bone made disturbingly, beautifully real.

Detroit is the decaying corpse of the American Dream. Motor-city. Murder-city.

And home to a killer opening doors into the dark heart of humanity.

A killer who wants to make you whole again…

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Book review: Ostrich by Matt Greene

My edition: Hardcover, to be published on 5 September 2013 by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 292 pages.

Description: Alex has a story to tell. He just doesn't know what kind it is yet. He's got a lot of the same concerns most of us do growing up (exams, puberty and, in his case, a punctuation obsession plus a little quantum mechanics) but lately, ever since his brain surgery, everyone in his life is behaving more than a little mysteriously. Maybe it's adjusting to life after epilepsy or maybe it's the pressure of his pending scholarship application, but Alex is starting to see the world through different eyes. He's certain there's something rotten at the heart of his parents' marriage, and when his beloved hamster Jaws 2 starts acting up as well he decides it's time to investigate.

So begins the journey that takes him to the limits of his understanding, the edge of his endurance, the threshold of manhood, and the country music aisle in Virgin Megastore. And eventually, on the eve of his English Composition exam, to the door of his mother's home-made dark room. But will Alex have the courage to expose the terrible secret that lies beyond? Or would it be better for everyone if he buried his head in the sand?

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Book review: The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani

My edition: Paperback, published on 6 June 2013 by Tinder Press, 389 pages.

Description: Thea Atwell is fifteen years old in 1930, when, following a scandal for which she has been held responsible, she is 'exiled' from her wealthy and isolated Florida family to a debutante boarding school in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

As Thea grapples with the truth about her role in the tragic events of 1929, she finds herself enmeshed in the world of the Yonahlossee Riding Camp, with its complex social strata ordered by money, beauty and equestrienne prowess; where young women are indoctrinated in the importance of 'female education' yet expected to be married by twenty-one; a world so rarified as to be rendered immune (at least on the surface) to the Depression looming at the periphery, all overseen by a young headmaster who has paid a high price for abandoning his own privileged roots...

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